Champions League team news: Manchester City sport quality despite injuries and suspensions

Manchester City vs Schalke 04 team news

Manchester City’s squad strength will be on display at the Etihad tonight when they trot out a star XI despite a slew of injuries to top players and a brace o.

Kevin de Bruyne, Benjamin Mendy and skipper Vincent Kompany have all been ruled out with injury. Fernandinho and Nicolas Otamendi are suspended, the latter triggered a ban by being sent off in the first leg while the former picked up a yellow card that earned him a mandatory one-match ban when he brought down Salif Sané in the penalty area shortly before the break.

On Schalke’s side of things the absence of Mark Uth and Amine Harit from the squad has prompted unconfirmed reports that the pair were the subject of internal discipline. Harit allegedly earned the ire of manager Domenico Tedesco for taking selfies with Fortuna Düsseldorf players after a 4-0 loss that was the third of four straight defeats suffered by the club starting with their 3-2 loss to City last month. Schalke have denied rumours that Uth was left out because he missed a training session after learning he was to be left out of a matchday squad.

Daniel Caligiuri, Omar Mascarell and Alessandro Schöpf have been ruled out of the Schalke starting XI with injury.

John Stones is expected to start for City despite a muscular niggle that kept him out of training until late last week.

With the skipper absent from the final City training session Stones is expected to partner Aymeric LaPorte in the heart of the Citizens defense.

Likely teams

Manchester City (likely XI): Ederson; Walker, Stones, Laporte, Zinchenko; B.Silva, Gundogan, D. Silva; Sterling, Agüero, Sané

Schalke (likely XI): Fährmann; Stambouli, Sané, Nastasić; McKennie, Konoplyanka, Rudy, Oczipka, Bentaleb; Embolo, Burgstaller

Juventus vs Atlético Madrid team news

Douglas Costa is still sidelined for Juventus but the Old Lady will have plenty of firepower as they seek to overturn a 2-0 away defeat to Atlético Madrid in the first leg of their last sixteen tie.

Federico Bernardeschi is set to start ahead of Paulo Dybala who is expected to be utilized from the bench if Juve are still chasing the game in the second period. Mario Mandžukić and that man Cristiano Ronaldo complete a diverse attack for the Turin club.

Diego Simeone won’t be able to employ his ideal trident of Diego Costa, Alvaro Morata and Antoine Griezmann. Costa is suspended, a natural consequence of the type of game the Brazilian-born Spanish striker plays. Without their ‘disruptor’ Atlético will revert to a 4-4-2 formation, they will settle for a boring match but would ideally like to secure an early goal to give Juventus a mountain to climb after they were shut out in Madrid.

Both sides have a man suspended with Atlético missing Ghanaian midfielder Thomas Partey while Juve are expected to deploy Leonardo Spinazzola at left back in place of Brazilian Alex Sandro who was booked in the second half of the first leg.

Likely teams

Juventus (likely XI): Szczęsny; Cancelo, Bonucci, Chiellini, Spinazzola; Can, Pjanić, Matuidi; Bernardeschi, Mandžukić, Ronaldo

Atlético Madrid (likely XI): Oblak; Arias, Giménez, Godín, Juanfran; Koke, Rodrigo, Ñíguez, Lemar; Griezmann, Morata