Arsenal and Manchester City paid a heavy price for finishing second in their Champions League groups when they drew Bayern Munich and Barcelona respectively in the last 16 of the competition.
The other English clubs, having topped their groups, have, on paper at least, been handed easier ties. Manchester United will play Olympiakos, while Chelsea will face an old friend in Didier Drogba as they were drawn against Galatasaray.
For Arsène Wenger’s team it will be a repeat of last season’s meeting in the last 16, when the eventual winners eliminated the English team on the away-goals rule.
Bayern won the first game at the Emirates 3-1 before losing 2-0 at home, with Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny getting the goals for the visitors, the latter with four minutes of the tie remaining.
Not stopped winning
Since then, Bayern have swapped coach Jupp Heynckes for Pep Guardiola but have not stopped winning. They are unbeaten in the Bundesliga, although they did lose their final Champions League group game against Manchester City last week.
City’s last-16 draw, meanwhile, will cause further scrutiny of Manuel Pellegrini’s concession that he was unaware another goal at Bayern Munich would have won the group phase and avoided playing a side of Barça’s status.
City beat Bayern 3-2 in last week’s final group match, after coming from 2-0 down after the opening 12 minutes. But Pellegrini later admitted he did not know a fourth goal would have pushed the holders into second place.
While there was no guarantee that City would have managed a fourth, finishing second in the group meant they would face one of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain or Borussia Dortmund.
“Very tough, we are happy because we are here and we will fight for the trophy, but it’s true that it could be maybe better,” City’s director of football Txiki Begiristain, who held the same position at Barcelona and spent seven years as a player with the Catalan club, said.
While Pellegrini has dryly laughed off his ignorance by apologising for not being able to score four goals at the home of the European champions, privately he may feel otherwise.
Pellegrini has claimed that Barcelona will be concerned at drawing City in the last 16, because the Catalan clubs are not as strong as they were a few years ago and his own side showed their strength with last week’s win at Bayern Munich.
The tie means Txiki Begiristain, City’s director of football, and the chief executive, Ferran Soriano, will face their former club for the first time since leaving.
Soriano was at Barca for five years before his resignation in 2008, having been one of several directors to offer a vote of no confidence in Joan Laporta, the then president. Begiristain departed in 2010 when Laporta did.
The opening leg against the four-times European Cup winners is at the Etihad Stadium, where City are in rampant form, on February 18th. The return at the Camp Nou is on March 12th.
'Very concerned'
"I think they will be very concerned," Pellegrini said. "Not only because we beat Bayern Munich. They know Manchester City is a strong team and it will be difficult for them. Barcelona is not the team it was two years ago. We will see how they arrive in February."
Asked why are they are not the same side, the City manager said: “I don’t know exactly what happened inside Barcelona. They changed three managers in the last three years, maybe the performances of the players are not the same, maybe the players are older.
“There are a lot of reasons why teams change. They continue to be a very good team. Two years ago they were more unbeatable than today.”
Gerardo “Tata” Martino, Pellegrini’s opposite number, insisted City would not have wanted to meet his side. “I imagine they won’t be happy to have got Barcelona, either,” he said.
Pellegrini responded to the criticism he drew after his miscalculation of the match situation at Bayern. “I recognised I made an error, a normal error because I repeat I thought we needed a three-goal difference,” he said. “But to have consequences in the future, I don’t think there are any because we tried to scored a fourth goal.”
The injury suffered by Sergio Aguero, who has 19 goals in 20 appearances, is a blow before the festive period. "I think he will be at least one month out," Pellegrini said. The forward tweeted: "It's confirmed - my calf injury will leave me out for at least a month. The good news is recovery work starts today! We started with therapeutic massages on the area and some bike work. I'll keep you posted."
– Guardian Service
