Manuel Pellegrini’s men will be looking for some sort of ‘mini miracle’ as the Premier League title challengers look to overturn a 2-0 deficit. Goals from Lionel Messi and Dani Alves at the Etihad Stadium last week have hindered Manchester City’s chances of advancing into the last-eight of the competition.
The first leg of this affair saw Barcelona with an early dominance but with City weathering the storm. Demichelis's foul from behind on Messi resulted in Messi scoring Barca's first from the penalty spot and City playing with 10 men.
Dani Alves extended the advantage with a late goal.
If we're being technical, Manchester City currently control their own destiny in the Premier League race.
Sure, it might be a bit premature to worry about such things, seeing as City still have 12 games to play, but the nine points City currently trail Chelsea are deceiving, since they have three games in hand on the league leaders.
They'll start their charge to the title against a Hull City side that is currently battling to avoid relegation but is also coming off of a huge 3-0 win over Sunderland in the FA Cup that propelled them into the semifinals.
Can Hull keep the good feelings going with a huge upset over City? Or will City triumph again, as they did when they beat Hull in August, 2-0?
When: Saturday at 8:45 a.m. ET
Saturday at 12:45 p.m. GMT
Where: KC Stadium, Hull, England
Watch: NBC Sports Network; NBC Sports Live Extra; BT Sport 1 (U.K.);BT Sport App (U.K.)
Chances: Manchester City (58.3 percent), Hull City (19.3 percent) and draw (22.4 percent), according to Bloomsberg Sports
Key Storylines
Even in the time between the two games [against Barcelona in the Champions League], the Blues have been playing like a team with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Stoke were only just negotiated in a poor performance from the Citizens, while some individual brilliance rescued the club in the Capital One Cup final—in another mediocre display. Then the less said about the defeat to Wigan the better: The Blues were poor and took their opponents for granted.
Pellegrini's men really did pick a bad time in the season to have a dry spell—eight goals in their past eight games isn't the Manchester City that began the season.
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