UEFA Champions League 2019/20: Top 5 favourites for the competition

#1 Manchester City

Can Pep win his first UCL away from Barcelona?

A decade ago, Manchester City were taken over by affluent Arab owners, who wanted to catapult the blue half of Manchester into the upper trenches of English and European football. And, it’s fair to say that they’ve accomplished the former rather emphatically.

However, with regards to the latter, there remains a lingering feeling that the Cityzens haven’t realised their potential on the continental front.

Despite their constant presence in the UCL this decade, they’ve failed to get past the semi-final hurdle, with the highlight being their last four appearance in 2015-16.

Yet, one feels that the aforementioned narrative might be about to change this time round.

At present, City arguably boast of the most complete squad across Europe. Though they are currently a centre-back short, they have the requisite quality to offset it.

Offensively, the trio of Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero are as good as any whereas the midfield triumvirate of David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Rodri can control games in the middle third, even against the best of teams.

Most tellingly though, they have a manager who’d be itching to salvage a reputation that has taken a hit in the Champions League recently.

Pep Guardiola, arguably the premier manager in the world, hasn’t been able to win the UCL since leaving Barcelona. Inevitably, questions have been raised regarding his ability to come up trumps in clutch situations.

Moreover, Klopp won the Champions League last season and considering the mini-battle Guardiola relishes with the German, he would want to even the score come May 2020.

And, with the squad at his disposal, it would take a brave person to bet against them going all the way.