GOOD ON YA
A Shaw stopper
YAYA TOURE believes Barcelona’s Champions League heroics should be a warning and inspiration for Manchester City, in a season-defining week.
Pep Guardiola’s men are all but out of the Premier League title race after being held to a 0-0 draw by Stoke on Wednesday.
It means that the Spaniard’s best hopes of ending his first season at the Etihad with a trophy lie with the FA Cup and in Europe.
Greatest
They go to Middlesbrough in the quarter-finals of the cup tomorrow and then take a 5-3 first-leg lead to Monaco in their Champions League last-16 tie next Wednesday.
Toure’s former club Barca pulled off the greatest comeback in Champions League history on Wednesday, turning a 4-0 first-leg deficit against Paris St-Germain into a 6-5 aggregate win.
And he sees that as proof that no comeback is impossible, meaning City can yet make up a 10-point gap to Chelsea.
But it also leaves him wary that ® RYAN SHAWCROSS says Stoke have finally proved they are no pushovers for the big boys.
Mark Hughes’ men have gained a reputation for caving in against the top clubs this season.
The Potters have shipped goals against the top six, conceding four against City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham (twice).
But Shawcross walked off with the man of the match award after a battling 0-0 draw at Manchester City on Wednesday.
And the defender said: “After Spurs we were disappointed with how we played and the effort we put in. But we put that right from the start against City.
“We’d worked on making sure we got numbers behind the ball and went with a plan to make sure it was hard for them. I thought we executed it brilliantly.
“There was a lot of team effort and we had chances as well.”