City’s fatal flaw on the left does them in

Manchester: If there was a fatal flaw in Roberto Mancini’s Champions League game plan during his two failed attempts at cracking the competition as Manchester City manager, it was a San Andreas Fault-size hole on the left flank of his team.

Sadly for Manuel Pellegrini, it rumbled and groaned and tore itself open again on the night that the most destructive team in the world came to the Etihad Stadium.

From the Bernabeu to the Westfalenstadion, to the Allianz Arena and Stadio San Paolo, the chink in City’s armour has always been down the left side.

But despite the £100 million (Dh612 million) spent on reinforcements last summer — a well-invested splurge on Fernandinho, Alvaro Negredo and Jesus Navas, in particular — the failings of Gael Clichy and Aleksandar Kolarov somehow slipped under the radar.

Samir Nasri, the attacking midfielder, was another guilty party, with Mancini regularly berating the Frenchman before withdrawing him from a left-sided role when the damage had often already been done against continental opponents. The pace and trickery of Alexis Sanchez, supplemented by the overlapping runs of Dani Alves, ensured that Barcelona possessed the tools to capitalise on City’s left-sided weakness, so Pellegrini’s answer was to play both Clichy and Kolarov in the same team in an effort to bolster that area of the pitch.

Clichy and Kolarov appear as together as Liam and Noel Gallagher nowadays and their chemistry is little better.

Their task against Barcelona, however, was to offer defensive solidity at the same time as pushing Alves back and frustrating Sanchez. For all the danger posed by Lionel Messi, Pellegrini has seen the Argentine up close often enough to realise that attempts to stop him are futile and the only way to nullify him to stifle those around him.

Neither Clichy nor Kolarov were up to the job asked of them, though, and the left-side issue was exposed to an even greater extent with Martin Demichelis deployed to the left of captain Vincent Kompany at centre-half. Demichelis can pass, is comfortable on the ball and is well-known to Pellegrini having performed well for the coach at Malaga, but he certainly had an off-night, capped by his red card for fouling Messi and conceding a penalty.

Sadly for City, Clichy, Kolarov and Demichelis against Barcelona was a footballing Bermuda Triangle. In the first-half, a slip by Clichy after losing possession was followed by a misjudgement by Demichelis, but the home side survived until half-time simply because of the Herculean efforts of captain Kompany.

City’s defensive plan unravelled in the 53rd minute, though, when Demichelis was dismissed for fouling Messi.

It was a close call as to whether the foul was committed inside or outside the penalty area, but as soon as Messi received the ball, his former Argentina teammate was already doomed due to his position.

Pellegrini was now forced to make a switch, with Kolarov replaced by Joleon Lescott, who moved into the centre-half position vacated by Demichelis, leaving Clichy to deal with Alves and Sanchez on his own. Clichy appeared exhausted by his nights’ work, perhaps explaining why Neymar replaced Sanchez in order to chase a second goal.

It duly came, two minutes from time, when Barca once again pinpointed City’s left. Neymar and Alves simply danced around the flailing Clichy before Alves passed the ball past Joe Hart and into the net. Game over, tie over.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, 2014