City squeezed into the hat having come from behind to beat Club Brugge on Wednesday night. That result lifted Pep Guardiola's side from 25th and outside the qualification spots to a finishing position of 22nd. The bad news is that it has landed them a date with Real Madrid. The ties will be played next month with the exact dates to be confirmed later today. McAtee was on loan at Sheffield United for the last two seasons but stayed with Pep Guardiola's squad last summer with the manager adamant that he wanted him in his plans.
That faith is still there, but it has not turned into game time despite the alarming slump of the team, with Guardiola trusting senior stars to come good and only giving McAtee starts in the Carabao Cup two and FA Cup one.
The arrival of Omar Marmoush and the return of Oscar Bobb will only give more competition for minutes in the positions where McAtee plays. Bayer Leverkusen are one of a number of teams to have inquired about McAtee this month and there has been strong interest from the Bundesliga. Read more here. It is the toughest draw possible for the play-off in February, even more difficult than the only other option at the end of the first stage: Bayern Munich.
City have played Real for the past three seasons in the knockout stages, with the winner of the tie on each occasion going on to win the whole competition. City will be firm underdogs this time given the struggles they have had since November, although Guardiola is hoping for some players back. However, the manager is resigned to having to compete with Real around a particularly tricky run of league fixtures that includes Newcastle between the two Champions League legs and Liverpool in the days after they return from the Bernabeu.
For the full story read here. We already start in Paris and then face Chelsea, so we are already there in amount of difficult games. Schedule is what it is. In Premier League every team has to play everyone. But normally in Premier League they always put toughest schedules for teams in Europe. Schedule the most difficult ones because it is tough to play against Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, but the problem is in the middle is Newcastle. Always they are so kind for the calendar, so many years, always happens in that way.
