Five Things Learned: Manchester City 2-0 Galatasaray (UEFA Champions League) | OneFootball

Manchester City scraped their way into the top eight of the UEFA Champions League to avoid a two-legged play-off affair after a 2-0 win over Galatasaray on Wednesday night.

The Blues went into the game in 11th place of the league phase table, knowing that even a win against the Turkish giants may not be enough to automatically progress to the Round of 16 of the competition. 

Ultimately, City would finish in eighth place after some tense final moments in Lisbon where Benfica were 3-2 up against Real Madrid, and an equaliser for the Madridistas would have sent them into the top-eight and drop City into ninth position.

However Los Blancos could not find that all-important equaliser and extraordinarily, Benfica goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored in the 98th minute for the Portuguese side to give them the goal they needed to move into the play-offs in 24th position. 

A brace of first-half assists from Jeremy Doku before he was forced off with a calf injury, paired with goals from Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki were enough for the 2023 winners of the competition to take all three points.

It was almost a perfect start for Manchester City when Rayan Ait Nouri broke forward on the left, sent in a cross to a surprisingly unmarked Haaland, but the Norwegian’s header went wide of the post.

In the 11th minute, Pep Guardiola’s side did have their opener after some brilliance from Jeremy Doku. The Belgian dazzled past the Galatasaray midfield, played a perfect pass through to Haaland in-behind a high Gala’ defence, and the striker made no mistake to lift the ball over the goalkeeper to ease some relief for City. 

18 minutes later and Doku shone again as he stood up against Davinson Sanchez on the left before dropping a shoulder and pulling the ball back for Rayan Cherki, who placed his effort into the bottom left corner to double Manchester City’s lead. 

Jeremy Doku’s night came to an unfortunate end however in the 37th minute as he initially went to ground following discomfort, and was replaced by Phil Foden eight minutes before the break. 

Galatasaray barely had a glimpse of the ball in the first half, never mind a glimpse at the Manchester City goal. But six minutes before the break, a careless mistake by Matheus Nunes was capitalised on by Victor Osimhen, he played a one-two with former Blue Leroy Sane to gallop towards goal, before Nunes recovered to stop the striker’s attempted pass back to Sane.

The teams went into the break with Manchester City leading by two, and the second half was one that the hosts survived spells of pressure from Galatasaray, and ultimately controlled most of it to get their fifth win of the Champions League campaign. 

Here are Five Things We Learned after Manchester City’s 2-0 win over Galatasaray!

Relief

Finishing in the top-eight of the Champions league will feel like a massive weight taken off of the shoulders of Pep Guardiola’s side.

After a surprising and disappointing loss in Norway last week to Bodo/Glimt, the Blues had pressure on their shoulders to avoid a two-legged play-off for a second consecutive year and made Wednesday night look easy when in reality, Galatasaray are a very tough team to face.

It is hard not to think however that this situation could have easily been avoided following the 0-2 loss at home to Bayer Leverkusen in November, and the 10 changes made to the line-up. The 2-2 draw away to Monaco at the start of October was avoidable too, and a 90th minute penalty from the Monegasque side dealing the Blues a major blow.

Despite results, on the positive side, Manchester City won a huge away game at Real Madrid which proved to be pivotal in the league phase. Alongside that, a 4-1 thrashing of Borussia Dortmund and a 2-0 win against Napoli both aided City’s campaign.

It was a different and probably less stressful scenario this year than last, where in the clash with Club Brugge, the Blues needed nothing less than a win to stay in the competition as a whole. They won that match 3-1 after an initial scare, before being eliminated in the play offs by Real Madrid.

Jeremy Doku

What a performance from the 23-year-old!

Despite only playing 37 minutes before picking up a suspected calf injury, he provided two assists, and has really stepped up his game this season and added two more goal contributions to a growing tally. He Belgian looks more dangerous when going forward, and a real threat to opposition.

He has always had devastating pace and one-versus-one ability, but his end product has been a noticeable problem at times. However, that seems to be something that he has worked to rectify and he is one of Manchester City’s most important attackers.

However, as previously mentioned, the winger was forced off with injury after 37 minutes and manager Pep Guardiola has said he is unlikely to feature in Sunday’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur. Speaking to reporters after the contest, Guardiola explained, “He looks injured. The calf. He felt something. (Out for the weekend?) I think so.”

Homecoming

Wednesday night also saw an emotional return for two former Manchester City players in Ilkay Gundogan and Leroy Sane. Whilst it wasn’t the result the two Germans would’ve hoped for, both were given a deserved welcome.

Gundogan only left in the summer, of course, but as always it was good to see him back at the Etihad Stadium, albeit slightly off-putting given he wasn’t in a Sky Blue shirt.

Gundogan described his return as ‘very emotional’, as he told reporters of his Etihad return, “It’s a special place. And to come here and to play football in general, it’s always a great feeling and to see a lot of familiar faces, seeing the Man City fans – really nice!”

For Leroy Sane, he played in Bayern Munich’s 3-0 loss to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium back in 2023, and almost three years later the winger was back.

He joined the Blues in 2016 from Schalke before leaving in 2020 for German giants Bayern. In that four year period, he became a fan favourite and struck up a perfect partnership with Raheem Sterling in some of Manchester City’s most successful campaigns.

Getting our mojo back

It’s back-to-back wins for Manchester City after back-to-back losses previously.

City seem to have sorted out their poor form to start 2026 at a perfect time with some huge games coming up. A 2-0 win against bottom of the league Wolves was a bit of a settler for the Blues, and the 2-0 win against Galatasaray was somewhat of a statement of intent.

Manchester City had to win against Galatasaray to have any chance of securing a top eight finish and that is exactly what Pep Guardiola’s side produced.

With a tough schedule coming up starting with Tottenham away on Sunday followed by a Carabao Cup semi final second leg against Newcastle – which City will take a 2-0 lead into – four days later there is a trip to Anfield against Liverpool, where they have won just once in 23 years.

Additionally, Erling Haaland’s deserved rest on the weekend proved to be beneficial, as he scored his first goal from open play in nine matches. If the Norwegian can recapture his form that he had in the first half of the season, then we could be in for a treat come May.

Next possible opponents…

Manchester City’s final position of eighth in the league phase means that their Round of 16 opponents will be either Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Bodo/Glimt, or Benfica.

Real Madrid or Inter will face Bodo/Glimt or Benfica in a last-16 play-off tie to be confirmed this week, with the winners of each facing one of Sporting Lisbon or Manchester City.

Manchester City have played two of their potential opponents already this year in Real Madrid and Bodo/Glimt, notably winning the former and losing the latter.

It almost feels as though the Blues and Real Madrid are magnetised to each other in European competition having faced each other in six of the last seven seasons.

As for Inter, the two teams have played each other just once outside of that famous night in Istanbul; a 0-0 draw in the competition’s opener in the league stage last season.

Bodo/Glimt, of course, played Manchester City for the first time last week and came out with a stunning 3-1 win. City and Benfica have never faced each other on record, but do however share a few players over the years such as Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo and Nicolas Otamendi to name a few.

Perhaps favourably, the Blues will play the second leg of their last-16 tie at the Etihad Stadium, due to finishing in the top-eight of the league phase.