RB Leipzig vs Manchester City. Prediction and Preview. Probable Lineups, Team News, Stats and more
RB Leipzig will host Manchester City FC in the UEFA Champions League 16th-tour match at Red Bull Arena Stadium. The fixture will take place on February 23, beginning at 01:30 IST.
Until recently, the hosts had been going through a crisis of ideology following the departure of their head coach and leading stars. However, the arrival of Marco Rosé marked a resurgence of RB Leipzig’s game DNA, based on gegenpressing and vertical attacks. The new coach helped the Red Bulls reinstall a beautiful and effective football to keep pace in the leading group of the Bundesliga, meanwhile progressing to the UCL play-off stage, forgetting the Shakhtar fiasco.
In the other corner of the ring, is Manchester City, which in turn is surprisingly experiencing an identity crisis due to the summer’s acquisition of super-bombardier Erling Haaland, who seems to have broken an established coherent formula and made the team dependent on him. The Citizens have been under fire this season, yet they are experienced enough to ride out the storm and push out the best they can, especially considering the staggering quality of the squad.
The battle between two emergent big powers of 2010’s promises to be interesting and intriguing. What can we expect this Wednesday night? Parimatch News will tell you everything you need to know ahead of the upcoming match.
RB Leipzig News & Current Form:
The club repeated last season in many ways. Again a bad start, and Domenico Tedesco, like his predecessor, paid for it with the position. This time the decision was made faster than in 2021, and it worked already in the fall – with Marco Rose it was possible to regain the position.
Leipzig are in fifth place in the Bundesliga, but are only four points behind leader FC Bayern Munich. Marco Rose’s team interrupted an excellent unbeaten streak of 18 games in the round before last, losing at home to title rival FC Union Berlin (1:2).
In two of their last five games, the Bulls have not been successful offensively: among the three victories with a total score of 8-2 there was a loss against Union and a draw against FC Cologne (0-0). This could be attributed to injuries to key players: top scorer Christopher Nkunku (17 + 5 in 24 games) and winger Dani Olmo (4 + 6 in 17 games). The Frenchman is expected to recover for the game against City, but his form is questionable. Christopher will leave to play for Chelsea FC in the summer.
RB started unsuccessfully in the Champions League group stage, losing his first two games against Shakhtar Donetsk FC (1-4) and Real Madrid CF (0-2), but pulled himself together and won the remaining four games, including the return leg against Madrid (3-2). That secured second place and a playoff spot.
The Germans have already played with the Citizens – in the group stage of the Champions League 2021/22. Both times the English club won (6:3, 2:1).
The Red Bulls are one of the best teams in Germany in terms of attack and defense. Only Bayern (61) and Borussia Dortmund FC (44) score more than Leipzig (43). And RB conceded only 26 goals (third place in the Bundesliga). However, over the last seven matches, Rose’s team did not take the ball out of the net in only two meetings.
Manchester City News & Current Form:
Manchester City just got two hits in a row in the English Premier League. Earlier in the day, the Citizens must have almost rejoiced at the loss of points of Arsenal FC to Aston Villa FC, but the Gunners managed to pull out a strong 4-2 victory, scoring two goals in the second half’s stoppage time. Less than an hour after that showdown, City started their game in Nottingham, where they dominated almost the entire match, but scored only one goal and ended up getting a return goal from Chris Wood, tying the game, 1-1.
This certainly unexpected loss of points somewhat devalues the Blues’ midweek victory at Arsenal’s field. Guardiola’s team had just caught up with their main rival in the battle for the EPL title this season. But then the reigning champion slipped back to second place, although the gap from the leader is only two points. But now we need to turn our attention to the Champions League, a tournament that Manchester City has long dreamed of winning but has never been able to do so.
So far, Pep’s ceiling in England was to reach the finals – and to lose there to Chelsea as the favourite. And in the last cycle, there was an unbelievable defeat at the end of the match against Real Madrid. It remains to be believed that Erling Haaland will be the trump card to succeed. But first, they have to beat RB Leipzig.
“He has a crazy mentality. When he sees the goal, it’s like he has to score no matter what. He continues to improve and works really hard for the team. He’s a world-class player in one of the best teams in the world”,
RB coach Rose complimented Norwegian.
In the group stage of the UCL, the Sky Blues won four matches and reduced two of them to goalless draws. Haaland, Manchester City’s top scorer, scored five goals in four games in the first leg – only Mohamed Salah and Kylian Mbappe were better, scoring seven times each.
At the same time, Manchester City is the most goal-scoring team in the English championship (60). But the Blues have lost concentration in defense, conceding in each of the last four matches, and in only three matches in 2023, the English club has kept the goal empty.
City have added holding midfielder Maximo Perrone to their squad – the 20-year-old was bought for $11 mln. The former Velez Sarsfield FC player has yet to make his debut for the new club. But winger Joao Cancelo left Man City for Bayern Munich, where he immediately won a place in the starting lineup.
Manchester City head coach Pep Guardiola commented on the failure against Nottingham Forest FC:
“It’s sad and disappointing but the way we played was really good, but we missed the chances that we missed, it’s because today was not the day to win the game.”
“We played a really good game, we knew it and we missed the second goal.After the second will arrive the third. We cannot do it but we have to look at ourselves to see if we can do better in terms of saying something like in terms of we have to win, yes. And we have to do it and today we missed too many clear chances.”
RB Leipzig form guide: W-W-W-D-L-W
Manchester City form guide: W-W-L-W-W-D
RB Leipzig vs Manchester City Head-To-Head Record:
| RB Leipzig | Draw | Manchester City |
| 1 | 0 | 1 |
- September 15, 2021: Manchester City 6 – 3 RB Leipzig (UEFA Champions League);
- December 7, 2021: RB Leipzig 2 – 1 Manchester City (UEFA Champions League).
RB Leipzig vs Manchester City Predicted XI:
RB Leipzig possible starting lineup (4-2-3-1): Blaswich; Klostermann, Orban, Gvardiol, Raum; Schlager, Laimer; Szoboszlai, Forsberg, Werner; Silva.
Manchester City possible starting lineup (4-3-3): Ederson; Walker, Akanji, Dias, Ake; Gundogan, Rodri, Silva; Mahrez, Haaland, Alvarez.
Statistical preview of the match RB Leipzig vs Manchester City:
- The teams met in the group stage of the Champions League 2021/22: Man City won at home (6:3), but lost on the road (1:2);
- Leipzig’s First XI average age is 27.0 yrs.
- City’s First XI average age is 28.9 yrs.
- Manchester City are unbeaten in 6 of their last 8 matches.
- RB Leipzig are without a loss in 19 of their last 21 games.
- In the last 5 games RB Leipzig conceded an average of 0.80 goals per game.
- RB Leipzig have scored in 19 of their last 21 games.
- RB Leipzig scored an average of 1.80 goals per game in their last 5 games.
- Manchester City conceded an average of 0.80 goals per game in their last 5 games.
- Manchester City have scored and conceded in their last 3 games.
- Manchester City are scoring an average of 1.60 goals per game in their last 5 games.
- Man City never conceded an away goal in the group stage of UCL.
- Leipzig finished second in the group with Real Madrid, Shakhtar and Celtic.
- Man City won the group suprassing Sevilla, Borussia Dortmund and Copenhagen.
What has been said before the match:
Leipzig’s coach Marco Rose sees the upcoming game as a great challenge:
“I have great confidence in my team. We want to compete against one of the best teams in the world, see and look for opportunities. We want to be brave and want to solve all the problems and tasks – Haaland is one of them. We want to do it as a team.”
“It is just a top, top squad with an outstanding coach. I told my lads we will need to suffer. But we shouldn’t see it as suffering, we should enjoy it. We should be able to close down the free spaces and interrupt the good combination play. We need to have fun and enjoy defending and winning the ball. Then it’s all about creating chances, taking advantage of certain chances that we can have.”
“We want to compete with them and want to prove we also have a good team, with good players that can play at the top level. I see ourselves well prepared and there is great anticipation.”
“It will be a difficult game but anything is possible. If we go out there as a team and with our fans behind us, we can achieve great things. We’re stronger together.”
City’s goalkeeper Ederson Moraes is determined to win Champions League:
“One of the goals I have set for myself is to win the Champions League. That’s what’s missing and I want to be able to achieve this objective. I’m willing to always work hard, I always give it my all. So, this year, I want to achieve my objective, by any means necessary.”
This title is what the club needs, it’s what we athletes need and it’s what Pep Guardiola needs here at the club, too. This year, we’re going to try. We’re going after it.”
About the game with RB he said:
“Well, last season, we played against them in the group stage. They’re a good team, they have good players, so we have to be prepared.”
“I’m certain that the whole team will be there. I hope we’ll be able to play well, but it won’t be easy because the Champions League doesn’t have easy games. So, I’m expecting a challenge, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to play well and get a good result in the first leg and to carry on with that afterwards.”
Pep Guardiola ahead of the fixture:
“Kevin de Bruyne and Aymeric Laporte will miss the game due to illness.”
“We know the quality of them [Leipzig] for many years. With a culture for young players, recruitment, clear patterns of play, a lot of play in the middle, physicality in German football in the transition they are unstoppable. Many respects for this Club and what they’ve done. Last year with former boss Jesse Marsch and Christopher Nkunku we struggled. Here we lost – okay we had qualified – but we struggled.”
“Every season they’ve qualified for the Champions League I know the quality and it will be a tough, tough two games. We must try to make a good performance, control our emotions and get a good result for the second leg in Manchester.”
RB Leipzig vs Manchester City Prediction:
Despite occasional point losses, Manchester City remain England’s most high-scoring team (60 goals scored in 24 games). This star-studded machine produces an average of 2.5 goals per round in the EPL. However, they also concede quite a lot – one allowed goal per game on average.
As for Leipzig, 10 of their last 12 matches have seen more than 2.5 goals netted. German attacking football gravitated to the vertical development of attacks – this is a kind of quality mark of the Bundesliga. The Bulls are among the top 3 scoring teams in the top division of Germany, racking up 43 goals in 21 games.
Statistical trends from the history of their head-to-head encounters also fit in here: prior to this season, fate had only drawn these teams together once, not long ago – at the group stage of the 2021/2022 UEFA Champions League season. Back then, City triumphed 6-3 at home, before going to Germany, having already secured top spot, and losing there 1-2.
It’s likely to be a high-scoring game this time, too.
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Parimatch News staff prediction:
We say: A match total will be over 2.5 – yes.