RB Leipzig vs Manchester City, Champions League live: score and latest updates

07:18 PM

Jack Grealish looking rather peaky this evening

07:15 PM

The team news analysed

It looks like RB Leipzig are lining up in the 4-2-2-2 system the Red Bull group is known for. When executed well, it can be very challenging to play through with so many central numbers. Nkunku came on off the bench against Wolfsburg on Saturday in the 85th minute, and is fit enough for the bench.

City have gone with their most robust defensive back four in the absence of Stones, with Walker and Ake either side of Dias and Akanji. I do think that costs City some variety and ball progression when they build up though – neither Walker nor Ake can step inside next to Rodri like Rico Lewis, Cancelo or Zinchenko can. It might mean City build up in a more orthodox – 4-1 shape rather than the 3-2 we have grown accustomed to.

Mahrez, Haaland and Grealish are Guardiola’s go-to front three in big games.

07:05 PM

The two starting XIs

06:54 PM

Haaland has form against Leipzig

Erling Haaland has played against RB Leipzig four times and has scored six. If you’re good at maths, you’ll know that works out as a goal every 60 minutes on average.

06:45 PM

We should be in for goals

These two teams played in last season’s Champions League group stage, and the games produced 12 goals with City winning 6-3 in Manchester and RB Leipzig winning a dead rubber 2-1 at home.

06:38 PM

A familiar foe for City

Timo Werner is expected to start for RB Leipzig tonight. Things did not work out for the striker at Chelsea (things so often fail to work out for strikers at Chelsea), but he did excel against Man City in the 2021 Champions League final. His pace and movement stressed City’s defence that night, and helped ensure Chelsea were always a threat on the break. It was Werner’s stretching run in the left channel that created space for Kai Havertz’s winning goal.

06:30 PM

Pep Guardiola: Destiny has already decided City’s Champions League fate

By James Ducker, Northern Football Correspondent

This season has given rise to varying shades of Pep Guardiola. There has been relaxed Pep, emotional Pep, agitated Pep, defiant Pep and here, on the eve of his latest stab at Champions League glory with Manchester City, we got philosophical Pep.

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“At the end, destiny is already written,” the City manager mused ahead of the first leg of his side’s round-of-16 tie against RB Leipzig in Saxony.

“Sometimes we have been close [to winning it], sometimes not. I have the feeling that what we have done, all of us, is going to fail.

“Whatever I have done personally in the past or in the future, I am going to fail. Nothing will be enough. So when I learnt that … just have fun, enjoy being in this press conference, then after a nice dinner with good wine and watch [Real] Madrid and Liverpool and a little bit of Napoli, prepare well for the game and let’s go guys, let’s try to do it again.”

It was only nine weeks ago that Guardiola, unprompted, admitted before a Carabao Cup tie against Liverpool that the Champions League was “the trophy we want” and that his period at City “will not be complete if we don’t win it”. But, whether he was trying to deflect some of the pressure off his players or has genuinely resolved that there is no point getting too hung up about it all, Guardiola certainly sought to project an air of calm and serenity before the resumption of another quest to be reacquainted with the cup with big ears, 12 years after his last triumph in the competition.

“Everyone puts a perspective that everything is a disaster if you don’t win some prizes,” he said. “I don’t want to put that perspective on myself because I’m blessed to be here. I never thought when I arrived we have to win every year the Premier League or three or four Champions Leagues.

“Except Real Madrid, the rest cannot do it! We just try to do what we’ve done, because in the last two seasons we’ve been really close and played really good games, and try to do it again.”

If City are to overcome Leipzig en route to immortality in Istanbul on June 10, they will have to navigate the first leg without their midfield talisman Kevin De Bruyne, who, like centre-half Aymeric Laporte, has not made the trip due to illness. It could open the door for a rare foray in midfield for Phil Foden, whose season is in desperate need of a spark, but Guardiola has warned his players to expect a far tougher assignment than many are predicting.

Marco Rose, who managed City’s top scorer Erling Haaland at both Red Bull Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund, will be without the injured Dani Olmo, and another star attacker, Christopher Nkunku, is only likely to be fit enough for a place on the bench.