UEFA Champions League 2018-19: Rating the English clubs' performances in Match Day 1

MANCHESTER CITY 1-2 LYON

VERDICT 3/10

They've won the Premier league in 2012, 2014, and 2018. They've also won multiple FA and League Cups, so the next step has to be the CL. The Qatari owners have this goal too much in their minds, and it's pretty much telling that Guardiola wants to win his first CL since 2011. He can be the greatest CL manager of all-time, but to attain this, he needs to progress this season with Man City. The CL has now become the club's new holy grail.

But their loss to Lyon, a team who aren't mugs - as it were - is not in tune with their plan.

Yes, it's early days still, and they could still in the group.

But then their attacking play, and more so their defensive work, was very slack by their usual high standards.

This will need to rectify in short order. They are still on paper the strongest team in the group, so possibly they will recover from this accordingly. Could Pep not being on the touchline be a factor? Possibly not.

Pep would have had a gameplan and merely the players, Arteta, and he, would have agreed that Arteta would implement it and make the requisite changes. He also could have spoken with them at half-time, as it was just a touchline ban.

If City are to win the CL this year, they cannot afford defensive errors as the ones that occurred in this game. Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern, Juve, or even another English team, would exploit them to a great measure,