Dusan Vlahovic and Weston McKennie scored to lead Juventus to a 2-0 Champions League win over Manchester City on Wednesday, a major blow to the English champions’ hopes of clinching a top-eight spot in the group stage of Europe’s elite competition.
City, who lifted the 2023 Champions League trophy, continued a poor run of form which has brought only one victory in their last 10 games across all competitions.
“(Confidence) is a big part of it, obviously it’s a mental issue as well. You can see that. You can see that sometimes one action we miss the ball or lose a duel and you can see that we drop immediately,” City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan told Amazon Prime.
“It has such a big effect on us right now. At the crucial moment right now we are doing the wrong things.”
Vlahovic scored by the narrowest of margins in the 53rd minute when Kenan Yildiz swung the ball in and City keeper Ederson fumbled the Serb’s header from close range and the ball sneaked just across the line, according to the goalline technology.
“The whole team played an excellent match, we prepared well and did everything what we had to do,” Vlahovic told Amazon.
“The result is amazing and can give us a great boost for the rest of the season.”
City picked up the tempo in a desperate attempt to equalise and sent numbers forward, but Juve capitalised to double their lead against the run of play when McKennie hooked Timothy Weah’s cross in with a sumptuous volley in the 75th minute.
Pep Guardiola’s team squandered several chances, one of the best falling to Erling Haaland late in first half.
Kevin De Bruyne sent a beautiful through ball to the Norwegian who got in behind the defence before trying to chip goalkeeper Michele di Gregorio who threw up his arm to block the shot.
Gundogan unleashed a blistering strike from long range that Di Gregorio stretched to just push wide.
“We have done it really, really well, we didn’t lose many balls that happened in the past, and we arrived in the positions,” Guardiola said.
“But the Italian teams that defend so deep and so compact it is not easy, they are masters of these kinds of situations.”
With two games remaining in the group phase, Juventus are 14th in the table while City plummeted to 22nd, three places out of automatic elimination from the competition.
Since the start of November, City have conceded more goals (21) across all competitions than any other team in Europe’s big five leagues, the worst spell in Guardiola’s otherwise sparkling managerial career.
City, who host Manchester United in the Premier League on Sunday, continue their Champions League campaign at Paris St Germain on 22nd Jan.
Juventus travel to Brugge on 21st Jan.
(Reuters)
