Real Madrid beat Manchester City 3-2 at the Etihad and the Premier League champions were perhaps fortunate not be on the end of a worse looking scoreline.
That’s certainly the view held by Wednesday’s edition of Marca, who state Manchester City have become an ‘ordinary’ side and missed being on the end of a ‘thrashing’ from Los Blancos.
There’s an insistence this is Pep Guardiola’s ‘worst team’ by quite some distance, and there’s ‘no trace’ of what the side once was. Marca believe Manchester City have become vulnerable and give away far more to the opposition than they once did.
In a snippet from their article which could be hung up on the Manchester City dressing room wall, the Spanish newspaper say: ‘Madrid deservedly won and did so by far fewer goals than they should have. The difference was so great that the whites could have sentenced the tie. It is time to finish it off at the Bernabéu.’
There’s criticism sent to multiple Real Madrid players for not finishing the game off sooner and putting the victory in doubt into well into the match.
Over at AS, in player ratings they blank-marked Kevin De Bruyne and Manuel Akanji. Rico Lewis also failed to get a grade, but he came on as a substitute.
