Man City v Red Star preview: Title-holders begin their defence
The Cityzens enter their 13th consecutive UCL group appearance with the full expectation of reaching the knockout phase just as they did in each of their last ten, hopes backed up by an imperious beginning to their Premier League (PL) campaign (W5).
The strength of City simply cannot be understated, with boss Pep Guardiola already securing his footballing immortality after overseeing England’s first club treble-winning team since Manchester United in 1998/99.
He followed that up with a UEFA Super Cup win over Sevilla and the expectation is more of the same, not least as this game will kick off five years to the day of this game since their last home defeat in European action (W24, D2).
Anything short of another City victory would arguably be the biggest shock of the opening round, especially seeing as Red Star have lost two of their last three games against much lesser opposition in the Serbian Super Liga.
Casting further doubt over the frankly remote chance of Red Star success is their woeful record against PL sides across their last seven such games (W1, D1, L5).
That run includes a 9-0 aggregate loss to Tottenham the last time they were grouped with an English side back in 2019/20, which doesn’t bode well unless they’ve improved significantly since.
That woeful record reads similarly to Red Star’s general European away form across their last eight trips (W1, D2, L5), and with defeats in all three of their Europa League away group games last term, any ambitious dreams of UCL glory may be short-lived.
Key battle: After setting a new PL scoring record last season (G36) and topping the UCL scoring charts (G12), current PL top-scorer Erling Haaland appears highly likely to continue his reign of terror on the continental stage.
Trying to stop him will be Red Star captain Aleksandar Dragović, a man who has already lost to City whilst on loan at Leicester and failed to stop Haaland from scoring twice whilst playing for Bayer Leverkusen.
Hot streak: Manchester City have scored 17 unanswered goals in UCL home games.
