Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund predictions: Pep's men to show their class

Free football tips, best bets and analysis for Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on Tuesday.

Where to watch

BT Sport 3, 8pm Tuesday

Best bet

Man City -1 on handicap
1pt 21-20 general

Team news

Man City
Pep Guardiola has a fully-fit squad to select from.

Borussia Dortmund
Youssoufa Moukoko has been ruled out for the season and joins Jadon Sancho, Axel Witsel, Marcel Schmelzer and Dan-Axel Zagadou on the sidelines.

Match preview

Erling Haaland has been linked with a move to Manchester City in the summer and the Borussia Dortmund hotshot can see first-hand just how good his potential suitors are when the teams meet in the Champions League quarter-final first leg.

Dortmund will always possess a puncher's chance with heavyweight Haaland in attack but there are too many broken areas of his team to suggest an upset is possible and if anything City could put the tie to bed before the return trip to Germany.

City have won 26 of their last 27 matches in all competitions and kept seven consecutive clean sheets in the Champions League to ooze control, something we have not always been able to say about Pep Guardiola's side heading into the latter stages of the Champions League.

The biggest danger to City, perhaps even more so than goal machine Haaland, is stage fright.

For some reason City have suffered in the Champions League and been knocked out by Monaco, Liverpool, Tottenham and Lyon in recent years when they were strongly fancied to progress on each occasion.

Kamikaze defending has often cost them and Haaland, who has ten goals in this season's Champions League to lead the Golden Boot race by four, is just the kind of striker to take advantage if chances present themselves.

However, this 2020-21 City side has shown few signs of slipping back into those dodgy old ways and Dortmund could quite easily be ripped apart unless they put in a seasonal best performance.

All the talk of Haaland being football's next best thing has overshadowed a poor campaign for Dortmund.

Saturday's 2-1 defeat at home to Eintracht Frankfurt left them seven points off the Champions League qualification pace and their defending all season has been abysmal, with 39 goals conceded.

Bayern Munich aside, this season's Bundesliga has not been particularly strong, and Dortmund's results against the perennial German champions perhaps points punters towards a handicap bet on City.

The aggregate score of Dortmund's last six Bundesliga games away to Bayern is 28-4 in favour of the Munich men, who have always scored at least four times. That includes a 4-2 success at the Allianz last month when Haaland's brace in the first ten minutes was eventually wiped out.

Dortmund will be gunning for an away goal and they have failed to score only once this season, but both of their goalkeepers have been shaky and even the experienced Mats Hummels is past his best.

Key stat

Man City have won to nil in each of their last four matches.

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