War of attrition has just started
Fixture pile-up will see English clubs limp into the last 16
WHEN Pep Guardiola was asked on Wednesday night who he hoped Manchester City might draw in the last 16 of the Champions League, he shrugged and let out a short but weary sigh before answering.
“We will see the draw and arrive in the right moment in February and we will try to play well,” he said, answering with a non-answer.
Twenty-four hours earlier Jurgen Klopp had been pressed on a similar theme and his reaction was along the same lines. “How could I sit here and ask for any team? I don’t care,” he said.
Both men will no doubt be hoping for the best and fearing the worst. And the worst will not so much be about the identity of their opponents as the prospect of arriving at the second full week in February with half their players missing.
The run to make it through the first bottleneck to the knockout stages has been gruelling; more so for Liverpool and Tottenham than the two Manchester clubs, who qualified with a game to spare.
Klopp has made it to Monday’s draw at the cost of a defensive crisis with Joel Matip fracturing a collarbone, Joe Gomez breaking a leg and Virgil van Dijk ruled out of the first match in February through suspension.
For Guardiola the problems have largely been further up the pitch with Kevin De Bruyne missing long term with knee ligament trouble and Sergio Aguero, Benjamin Mendy and David Silva adding to his problems of late.
Jose Mourinho has complained that United’s own defensive injury crisis contributed spectacularly to their failure to win their group.
Yet looking ahead to what is in store between now and February 12, it is hard to see how the situation will get much better.
City and Spurs have either 12 or 13 games to negotiate depending on whether they get through the third round of the FA Cup on January 6. And with City facing Rotherham and Spurs either Tranmere or Southport, they should.
That run of games includes 10 full-blooded Premier League matches, Carabao Cup quarterfinals against top-flight opposition, and the FA Cup fourth round. The fifth round falls in between the two Champions League legs just to make it even more testing.
For United and Liverpool, that examination is only marginally easier owing to their earlier elimination from the Carabao Cup. Compare and contrast that
to the continental
last-16 clubs’ schedules and the chances of the four English clubs getting there in better shape than their opponents, whoever they may be, look slim.
Juventus, Roma and Porto play nine matches ahead of the first leg, and Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon 10 they could win with one arm tied behind their backs.
Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Schalke, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Real will play eight and Ajax just six.
While English teams are flogging an already tiring horse over Christmas and new year, most of their rivals in the draw will have their feet up. City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan smiled when asked about whether he was looking forward to a period of six games in 20 days. “Yeah, because it’s a big tradition here in England,” he said. “I know from the times I was in Dubai on holiday when I was playing in the Bundesliga [on the winter break] and watching the Premier League.
“Now I’m part of this competition, so it’s great, because it has such history and it’s such a big tradition to play during that tough period. The injuries are the thing we have to deal with. The season is long and it’s normal to get injuries so we have to try to do our best in terms of recovery.”
There is also an argument to suggest that, in addition to the Premier League schedule shooting its teams in one foot, the style of football injures the other. The high-pressing approach favoured by Guardiola and Klopp, their sweeper-keepers keeping the ball in flow and everyone yoked into the defensive effort, has proved a revelation. But there is no doubting its attritional qualities.
Add that to the volume of games over the course of the next eight-and-a-half weeks, and the odds are already stacked up.
The heart says all four English clubs will go through to the quarter-finals but the head says two through would be a surprise.