Tomorrow - Man City under 19s vs Celtic under 19s

Monday night’s 7pm match sees Manchester City’s under 19s continue in the NextGen Series with a home game vs Celtic under 19s at Hyde FC’s Ewen Fields.

The NextGen Series has been created as a sort of youth team equivalent of the Champions League, with the group stages mimicking those of the Champions League with groups of 4 teams who play each other home and away, with the top 2 progressing.

Man City were drawn in a group with Marseille, Celtic and Barcelona. The group began with a 1-0 defeat for Celtic away at Marseille and Celtic then lost 3-1 at home to Barcelona. Man City’s opening match was next at home to Barcelona, and they narrowly lost 2-1.

With Barcelona then beating Marseille 4-1 at home to put them top of the table with 3 wins in 3 games, Man City had their opportunity to get their first points away at Marseille... instead this game was a disaster for their hopes of progressing, as they suffered a 3-0 defeat.

So it’s Barcelona 3 games played – 9 points, Marseille 3 games played – 6 points, and Celtic and Man City have both played a game less and both have no points. Celtic and Man City are still to play away at tournament favourites Barcelona, a game no-one would feel very confident of getting a result at currently, so this game coupled with Man City playing at Celtic on the 7^th November is important to both for trying to catch up with Marseille.

For both teams on Monday the situation is that whoever loses would then need to win all their remaining 3 games and rely on Marseille not winning anything else and other results also being favourable – to say that’s a tall order would be an understatement. City in particular given home advantage will be looking to get 3 points in this one to close the gap; else they’ll need to get wins from away trips at Celtic and Barcelona in order to still have a chance of qualifying by the time they face their final group game at home to Marseille.

Both teams play each other twice, play away at Barcelona and finish at home to Marseille. Both teams know points in this game are vital. Both teams feel they've been unlucky to not get points so far after each of their games have been reported as close affairs separated by luck. They're each confident of getting something against the other. Monday night's game seems difficult to predict, and is likely to be a close and hard fought encounter.