Yaya Toure was sent off in the 81st minute of the match after lashing out at an oppponent

Manchester City’s Champions League aspirations are all but over after their defeat to CSKA Moscow on Wednesday night and if we Citizens thought that we were having a bad campaign in Europe before this latest humbling to what was on paper the weakest team in the group, then we certainly had another thing coming. What happened during the week at the Etihad was shameful to say the least and it is absolutely impossible to garner any positives from it. Morning shows the day is what they say, and going a goal down inside the opening two minutes certainly did not bode well for the home team who needed nothing less than three points from the game.

Seydou Doumbia heads home CSKA’s opener in just the 2nd minute

It is sometimes hard to believe that this is the same team that performs so well in the Premier League. Manuel Pellegrini, as I said just the last week,  needs to figure out exactly why his City team are not being able to replicate the form that they have been producing in the  League. Analyzing our performance against CSKA Moscow is not at all an easy task for any City fan simply because  none of us would want to relive the experience. Our defending was all over the place and exactly how Seydou Doumbia found himself unmarked just yards from the goal is simply mindboggling. It was Yaya Toure who was in charge of marking his fellow Ivorian, but what he did was far from it. Even the second goal was a pretty poor one to concede after the CSKA forward was completely ignored by Pablo Zabaleta. Gael Clichy’s part in this goal cannot be ignored after a horrible clearance from him gave the visitors the ball back in the first place. If defending was our worst attribute on the night then discipline was surely a very close second. Both of  Fernandinho’s tackles were bookable offences and it will be unfair to blame the referee for being too harsh on the former Shakhtar Donetsk man. Yaya Toure on the other hand had an absolutely preposterous day at the office despite scoring City’s only goal on the night from a superb free kick. Our number 42 is growing increasingly frustrating to watch just because of his inconsistency. Toure has the capacity to boss the opposition midfield on his day, but on others he fails to even make a mark. Wednesday was certainly not one of those days for the midfielder after he scored from a free kick, but unfortunately for him, it is not the goal the he will be remembered by. The tremendous lack of discipline that Yaya Toure showcased in the 81st minute when he lashed out at Moscow midfielder Eremenko is truly disheartening and is not an action that you’d expect from a footballer of the highest level.

Manuel Pellegrini looks to have failed again as City are left with a mountain to climb

Any hopes that City had of getting something from the game was dashed at the dismissal of these two midfielders but the truth is points are not all that we lost on that night. Manchester City have just two points from four games and find themselves at the bottom of their group. To put it simply, we need to beat Bayern Munich in our next game to have any chance of progression while a draw will only be enough to keep us alive if the game between AS Roma and CSKA Moscow produces no winner. Honestly speaking though, the chances of City progressing from this group are minimal and I would be very surprised if they made it to the Champions League knockout stages.