City players go crazy after Sergio Aguero completes the comeback over Bayern Munich with his third goal of the game

All’s well that ends well goes the old adage and it is certainly something that everyone associated with Manchester City Football Club will have in mind as we approach probably our biggest game in European football till date. The match that I am referring to, and I’m sure most of you have got it by now, is City’s away fixture to A.S. Roma on the of 10th of December. It is also very ironic that we are still in a position to discuss Manchester City’s European future, especially after I categorically stated in my last article for this website that there would be none following our home loss to CSKA Moscow. Our European form this season has been nothing spectacular, as the five points from five games would suggest, but I’m sure that every City fan would be willing to forgive our past shortcomings if we were presented with an opportunity to qualify from the group.

Sergio Aguero had a superb game last week as he scored a hat-trick against German giants Bayern Munich

What is even more surprising is that we find ourselves not just with an outside chance of qualification that completely depends on other results going our way, but what we are very lucky to have in our own hands is our future. Even after the poor campaign that we had, City are tied on five points along with CSKA Moscow and A.S. Roma. German champions Bayern Munich are nothing to worry about as they have already confirmed their further participation in the Champions League as winners of the group. What we are then left with is a three way race between CSKA, Roma and City for the second place in the group which would secure qualification for the Champions Leagues’ knockout rounds. The message that City boss Manuel Pellegrini needs to give his players could not be simpler. Manchester City must achieve a better result against A.S. Roma than what CKSA Moscow get against Bayern Munich. Just going on to contradict a point that I made earlier in this article, City cannot qualify if CSKA manage to secure a win over Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. Although we do not have the entire situation in our own hands, we are left with more than a fair chance because the odds of the Russians bagging a win over the German giants in Bavaria looks slim to say the least. Keeping that in mind, Manchester City need to step out onto the pitch at the Stadio Olimpico targeting nothing less than three points. A draw will be enough to see us through but only if CSKA lose to Bayern whereas a loss is not even an option that we can consider.

This is how Group E stands as we head into the final round of fixtures of the Champions League’s Group Stages

The chances of us grabbing the all important victory in Rome are decent enough to say the least although I have to accept that it is not easy to get anything from the home of A.S. Roma. Rudi Garcia’s men have had a rather up and down season in Europe as well and their inconsistency can be best showcased by comparing the results they got at home against CSKA Moscow on the opening day and Bayern Munich a couple of gameweeks later. While the former was a resounding 5-1 thrashing of the Russians, the latter was a 7-1 humbling at the hands of the Germans. It will be very interesting to see which Roma side turns up for their game against us, but there is one thing that we can be sure of, if City can manage to play to the level they are capable of, a win against Roma should be very much possible.