Man City

Follow all the action as Pep Guardiola's side host Diego Simeone's LaLiga champions in the last eight.

City topped their group in the earlier round, while Atletico were runners-up in theirs. At the weekend they warmed up for the tie with a routine victory over Burnley, while the Spanish side hammered Alaves to make it six straight wins in all competitions. Both Guardiola and opposite number Diego Simeone have faced heartache in the final of this competition with their current clubs, but City remain the favourites to go the distance this time - even if this will be a huge test for the Cityzens in the last eight.

Minute-by-minute report: Join Rob Smyth for updates as Diego Simeone's side return to Manchester after toppling United.

It’s Manchester City v Atletico Madrid, with the winners to face either Chelsea or Real Madrid in a semi-final which, whatever the permutation, will be loaded with meaning.The first leg of the quarter-final is at the Etihad tonight, with the second at the Wanda Metropolitano next Wednesday. City are strong favourites, for reasons that would be intelligence-insulting to explain, and all things being equal they will go through. But all things weren’t equal when Atletico put Guardiola’s Bayern out in the 2015-16 semi-final, or when they eliminated a rampant Liverpool two years ago, or when Pep was too funky by far against Spurs/Lyon/Chelsea.If Atletico can get out of Manchester with at worst a one-goal deficit, they will fancy their chances next week. They’ve won seven of their last eight games, and the eighth - a draw at home to Manchester United in the last 16 - ultimately led to victory. We want to impose our game but they are a good team - champions of Spain, and they have always had good results in Europe. They’re a tough opponent.“John [Stones] will play with Aymer in the centre and Nathan [will play at left-back]. We have players on the bench who can change the game - Gabi, Phil, Jack. But I decided to start with these guys today.”Manchester City’s Phil Foden (left) and Jack Grealish head out for the warm up. “Speaking of Football Weekly,” says Matt Burtz. “I’ve been a faithful listener for many years now, and I’ve always wondered if we’ll ever get to hear your dulcet tones as a panelist. But it’s the Withering Depths of Simeone’s sh!thousing Atletico that I’m looking forward to enjoying tonight.” It won’t be the same without Hector Herrera.

As Liverpool fans count down the days until the Reds take on Manchester City at the Etihad, the match officials have been confirmed.

Should the two top sides play out a draw, Jurgen Klopp's team will be relying on City to drop points elsewhere in their remaining seven fixtures in an attempt to wrestle the Premier League title away from Manchester and back to Merseyside. Tierney, from Salford, found himself at the centre of controversy back in February when he failed to award Liverpool's neighbours Everton a penalty against City after what appeared to be a blatant handball by Rodri. Although Tierney was the main match official on the day, he was not called to the pitch side monitor despite VAR reviewing the incident, with City going on to win the match 1-0 at Goodison Park. Anthony Taylor will take charge of Liverpool's crucial face-off with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, the Premier League has confirmed.

Referee Taylor is from Wythenshawe in Manchester while VAR official Tierney hails from Wigan, which falls within the Greater Manchester area.

Liverpool fans have been left outraged after Anthony Taylor (left) and Paul Tierney (right) were appointed referee and VAR respectively for Sunday's title showdown with Man City With the two teams neck and neck at the top of the Premier League table, the Liverpool fanbase aren't best pleased that two men with Manchester connections will be in charge. 'Mancs refereeing Mancs!': Liverpool fans left FURIOUS after Anthony Taylor is put in charge of Sunday's title showdown with Man City with Paul Tierney VAR as Premier League chiefs are slammed as 'incompetent'

Paul Tierney will serve as video assistant referee this weekend having enraged Jurgen Klopp during Liverpool's Premier League encounter at Tottenham in ...

He comes over and gives me a yellow card but I'd have preferred the right decisions on the pitch." Getting a positive result at the Estadio da Luz could be key as it would allow Klopp to make some changes for next week's second leg, which is sandwiched in-between the league clash with City and the FA Cup semi-final against the same opposition. "When you see the situation back, the VAR is there.

Manchester City host Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final. It is only the fourth time Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone ...

50 minutes to kickoff: As is often the case with a Guardiola XI, who plays where is the big question. But there's a lot of ground to cover and Gundogan arduously makes up the yards. He sees the England winger off to concede a corner and again there's no dice for City. Bernardo picks up the pieces and goes down under a Koke challenge. 24th minute: A rare foray for the visitors as Joao Felix gets away down the left. 50th minute: Again Atletico snuff out a City corner and again they have a man extra for a counter-attack. City make a hash of the corner and Griezmann looks like he's away. 76th minute: To circle back around to the pre-match overthink narrative, Guardiola is often criticised for - if anything - underthinking his use of the bench. De Bruyne slides a cute free-kick beyond a momentarily static Atleti backline but Sterling drags wide of the far post left-footed. Yet the way Angel Correa and others provoked Grealish during the closing stages, trying to draw City into their chaos spoke of a tie that is still very much alive. They drove Atletico back over the course of the opening 45 minutes but were unable to register a shot on target before the interval. Correa boots the ball at a prone Grealish right but the touchline.

Kevin De Bruyne broke Atletico Madrid's stubborn resistence as the Manchester City midfielder's second-half strike clinched a 1-0 win in Tuesday's Champions ...

De Bruyne had a chance to double City's lead but couldn't hit the target to leave the tie in the balance. Angel Correa escaped with a booking after kicking the ball at Grealish, earning a shove from Guardiola in the process. While Guardiola launched a water bottle in a frenzied celebration that underlined what a testing night it had been for his team, the City boss will know the tie is far from over.

Ahead of a potential title-deciding clash in the Premier League, Man City and Liverpool did little to dispute the notion that a Champions League final matchup ...

It was another night that highlighted the quality of the Premier League’s top two—and there could be quite a few more to come, both domestically against each other in England and on the road to Paris, where their burgeoning rivalry could reach its climax. It was a triple substitution from Guardiola that led to the deadlock being broken, as Foden had been on the pitch for less than two minutes when he slid a pass through for Kevin De Bruyne to score with 20 minutes remaining. There was no particularly odd pick here, the only slightly surprising selections being the preference for Bernardo Silva over Phil Foden as the false nine and Nathan Ake being deployed at left back with João Cancelo on the right in the absence of the suspended Kyle Walker.

Foden supplied the match-winning assist 80 seconds after coming off the bench - City's Plan B is a luxury that every other club would envy as a Plan A.

There is no worse side in Europe to fall behind against, whether that’s over one leg or two. If City were complicit in that struggle, it was through failing to move the ball quicker through midfield and repeatedly wasting crosses by hitting the first or second man at barely above head height. - Felix – 6 - Mahrez – 6 It also occasionally gets vaguely unpleasant. For most of Tuesday evening, Pep Guardiola pointed and screamed like a frazzled conductor in charge of four different orchestras as Manchester City struggled to break down a comedically defensive Atletico Madrid, albeit one that did flicker on the counter attack after the break.

Diego Simeone's Atlético Madrid hunkered down and defended in its Champions League quarterfinal at Manchester City. But a single goal might be enough to ...

It had one, possibly, in the second, though there is a very good chance that it was meant as a cross. It did not muster a shot on goal in the first half. And it almost worked here, too, against Guardiola’s latest masterpiece, a team that remains all but untouchable in the Premier League, a team that most likely ranks as the best in the world. And it is in those moments, too, that doubt is sowed in the mind of the opposition, when even a team as fine as Manchester City starts to second-guess itself, when it begins to wonder if it should be committing quite so many players forward. It is in those moments, those rare forays upfield, when an overworked defense has time to recover, to reorganize, to regroup. He would, privately, be pleased simply to have escaped from the Etihad with his side still in the tie. Or maybe it was that brief, fleeting and possibly accidental moment when the redoubtable Geoffrey Kondogbia burst into City’s half, looked up, and saw nothing in front of him except a couple of light blue jerseys and a broad swath of green. The style is, when it works, difficult to love but easy to admire. The Brazilian’s ennui could not — as it often can, during the course of both the domestic and the European seasons — be traced to Manchester City’s overwhelming superiority over its opposition, to its vast financial power, to its supercharged strength. Perhaps the best indication of how Diego Simeone, Atlético’s coach, intended to approach Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinal came in its first second. There was nobody else in his half of the field. He had stared, squinting, into the distance, scanning for some threat on the horizon.

With a return leg in Madrid and Liverpool looming, Phil Foden signaled to Pep Guardiola that he should start in Manchester City's upcoming gantlet.

I like to watch Manchester play, the patience they have to play." Almost immediately he picked up the ball in a tight space on the edge of the box, drew five Atletico defenders toward him and lifted his head to slip a pass through to De Bruyne. It was one of two outstanding moments of quality in the game, the other coming from Foden again when he danced his way down the byline to create another chance for De Bruyne. It might not be football to drool over, but Atletico have turned defending into an art form, and with two thirds of the game gone, City's best chance was an Aymeric Laporte header from a corner. Guardiola and Simeone wore the same long black coat on the touchline to guard against the Manchester rain, but their footballing styles could not have been more different. Had Foden stayed on the bench, City might not have found a way through Simeone's rigid game plan and would be heading to Spain next week with the tie on a knife edge. "A difficult game against a tough opponent, it's so difficult to find gaps," Guardiola said afterward.

Pep Guardiola has pledged to attack Atlético Madrid next week as he has targeted a place in the Champions League semi-finals.

We go there not to defend the result but to try and win the game.” We have to go to Madrid now and use the tools at our disposal.” “We will go there to score and try and win again,” Guardiola said.

Manchester City have a slender lead from the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final after Kevin De Bruyne's 70th minute goal earned them a 1-0 ...

"It is not easy to face a team with a lot of experience in this tournament. They have scored so many goals at home in the recent past," he said. If the game is tight they will have to attack a little bit more," added the Belgian. It is the way they play. They played with almost five at the back and with five in midfield. I recommend anyone that says anything ... that they try playing against that on the training ground.

With a monumental Premier League clash this weekend that could decide the league title, both sides made it through midweek Champions League victories ...

That would mean no room for Nathan Ake, who started both against Burnley and again against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. It's likely that Jack Grealish retakes his place on the left wing, while Phil Foden comes back in at striker and Raheem Sterling slides over to the right, which is the same configuration used against Burnley last weekend. Gundogan has played fewer minutes over the past few months, as Pep seems to be slowly phasing the German international out. Zinchenko has struggled to find time in the Man City lineup, but could be a rested option on Sunday. Jurgen Klopp's biggest decision comes up front, as Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah both came off on the hour mark against Benfica, but have displayed tired legs over the past few weeks as the minutes mount for both club and country. For Man City, Oleksandar Zinchenko was benched for the entire match, with Nathan Ake brought in to play left back.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola called on his players to control their emotions in their Champions League quarter-final return leg at Atletico Madrid ...

All the players start to press a little bit higher," Guardiola said. "There will be a referee there and we have to play our game. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Kevin De Bruyne has scored the only goal to give Manchester City a 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League quarterfinal.

“The way we played was good because we didn’t give anything away,” De Bruyne said. “They played almost five at the back and five in midfield, it is very hard to find the spaces.” “We knew it was going to be pretty tough to create some opportunities,” De Bruyne said. It was good that we took one.” Antoine Griezmann wasted one opening with a poor pass and Marcos Llorente chipped tamely at goalkeeper Ederson from another. After a tight 70 minutes, City finally found its way through Atletico’s tough rearguard helped by Phil Foden’s vision.