Ahead of their first home clash of this year's Champions League, Manchester City will be desperate to get things right in front of their own fans. In their first group stage game, the reigning Premier League champions were cruelly undone by a late goal from former player Jerome Boateng that fortuitously took a deflection and beat Joe Hart, who had had an overall great performance against Pep Guardiola's Bayern Munich.
To that end, Manuel Pellegrini did not mince his words when discussing the upcoming task at hand for his men in a pre-match press conference:
"Against Roma we have to win, but we do not feel any particular pressure - in Germany we were close to a draw, but this would not have changed our attitude against the Giallorossi," he noted.
"It’s a crucial game because they won their first match and we lost, so it’s important at home to win our first three points...[but] it's a very tough group and we cannot drop points here at home."
Despite bouncing back from that first European loss and subsequent draw to Chelsea with a 7-0 thrashing of Sheffield in the Capital One Cup and a 4-2 win over Hull City this past weekend, Roma have gone from strength to strength. Rudi Garcia's squad have continued their good form this season in Serie A, as they, alongside Juventus are the only team with a perfect win record in not just Italy but in Europe.
The Lupi have also shown their deep squad depth as indicated by their ability to grind out results even when the French tactician has opted not to field his strongest options available. And upon their return to the Champions League, the Serie A runners-up, regarded by some as the side most likely to be the one playing in the Europa League due to the difficulty of their quartet, made it loud and clear that they should not be underestimated by thrashing Russian outfit CSKA Moscow 5-1.
However, City are obviously a much more difficult opponent than the Russians. And to make things more difficult, Roma will have to contend without a slew of key players due to injury with Dutch and Italian midfield duo Kevin Strootman and Daniele De Rossi still on the treatment table. Then there's defenders Davide Astori and Leandro Castan, as well as long-term absentee Federico Balzaretti, who has yet to feature this season due to a pelvic injury.
Manchester City's Starting XI: Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy, Navas, Fernandinho, Yaya Toure, Silva, Aguero, Dzeko.
AS Roma's Starting XI: Skorupski, Maicon, Manolas, Mapou, Cole; Pjanic, Keita, Nainggolan; Florenzi, Totti, Gervinho.
Manchester City's Subs: Caballero, Sagna, Kolarov, Milner, Lampard, Jovetic, Mangala.
AS Roma's Subs: Curci, Holebas, Torosidis, Paredes, Iturbe, Ljajic, Destro.
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