Champions League: Battle of Britain favours City slickers

MAN CITY face their two biggest games of the season in the space of four days and by Saturday night Pep Guardiola could be written into the club's folklore.

First up is tonight's Champions League quarter-final first leg at Liverpool and a positive result will keep City on course for the Holy Grail.

On Saturday comes along the chance all fans live for – the opportunity to win the title against your greatest rivals as Man United visit the Etihad. Although I see Pep is suggesting he could play a weakened team and it will be interesting to see how that goes down with supporters.

Two Premiership games between Liverpool and City have produced 12 goals – if it was an aggregate situation the Blues would have won 8-4.

Their 5-0 rout at the Etihad was scintillating but Liverpool then won 4-3 at Anfield in one of the games of the season.

Goals are expected again tonight and over 2.5 pays just 7-10 at 188Bet – 11 of 14 meetings between the sides have gone that way.

There's a chance it could be less open as it's a first leg but Jurgen Klopp rarely plays that way and knows he'll need to take a lead to Manchester.

Both to score is no bigger than 8-15 at William Hill while btts and over 2.5 goals will be popular at evens with Sky Bet.

Liverpool are the only side to beat City in the Premier League and are 2-1 underdogs at McBookie to repeat the feat. City are 7-5 with the Scots firm but draw could be the way to go 13-5 and a score draw is 7-2 at McBookie.

Anfield will be buzzing but City are clearly better and should qualify at 4-9 with McBookie while the Reds are 9-4 at bet365.

City will be without Sergio Aguero though and will have to watch Mo Salah who has netted in six of his last seven at Anfield – and the one he missed out on was Porto when he played just 16 minutes.

Super Salah is 17-10 at SportPesa to net and 27-5 to score first.

Watching Real Madrid demolish Juve got me thinking about the gap between the top Italian and Spanish sides and it looks massive.

Barca thrashed Roma 6-1 in their previous meeting and another convincing win looks on cards – maybe something similar to the 3-0 they defeated Chelsea in the last round.

Bookies know it too and make Barca no bigger than 1-4 (bet365) to win on the night and 1-7 at William Hill to qualify.

Barca -1 must be on at 8-11 with betfair while Barca -2 pays 15-8 with the same firm.

It was Cristiano Ronaldo who stole the show in Turin and Lionel Messi will be out to make his mark on the big stage. The Argentine is 8-11 at Winner to net and 29-10 to score first while Luis Suarez is 5-6 and 16-5 respectively with the same firm.