Borussia have secured the first place in the group and Real the second. The only question in Group D is, which team will occupy the third position giving the right to participate in the Europa League. Manchester City is behind only one point the third-placed Ajax and victory in this visit is a must for the team. It would be rather interesting to see Mancini's team approach in this game, because some experts suggest that the manager prefers to leave the League in order to concentrate solely on the Premiership.
The players of Borussia and Bayern made a lot of effort in the derby this Saturday and definitely there will be a little fatigue in some of Dortmund`s footballers. This will undoubtedly provide a good opportunity for City to achieve decent result and erase just a little their weak performance in the Champions League so far. It seems, however, that even in the first match of the tournament, the team of Manchester City was not quite motivated to succeed. In the home game against Borussia, the team performed very poorly being totally outplayed by the Germans and only a controversial last minute penalty saved City from home failure.
The guaranteed first place in the group can influence Jurgen Klopp to leave some of his top players on the bench. Roberto Mancini on the other hand has some serious problems with the starting lineup. Yaya Toure is suspended after receiving his third yellow card in the tournament at the home match against Real Madrid last round. There are three important defensive players that are injured for the guests - Micah Richards, Aleksandar Kolarov and Gaël Clichy. In the midfield, absent due to injuries will be James Milner and Jack Rodwell.
In the last three Borussia games of the Champions League there have been over 2.5 goals scored as the team has scored at least two of them. In the previous five matches in the tournament, Borussia are undefeated, while Manchester City haven`t got a single win. Despite the weak pefrormances so far, if the guests have the ambition to play in the Europa League, they undoubtedly possess the necessary qualities to succeed in this game. Moreover, the team of Dortmund have already secured the first place in the group. This however, does not mean that the players who take part in the match for Borussia will not give great efforts to delight their fans.
The question that needs to be answered in order for us to make a decent prediction for this match is wether Manchester City are motivated to participate in the Europa League. However, even a victory will not guarantee them the third place as Ajax must not win their match against Real Madrid.