Shakhtar Donetsk vs Man City preview

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Wednesday 18 September 2019 23:52, UK

Team news, key stats and predictions ahead of Shakhtar Donetsk vs Man City as the Champions League group stages commence.

Team news

The big news for Man City is that John Stones is out for up to five weeks with a muscular issue, adding to their woes in central defence with Aymeric Laporte (knee) also injured.

Phil Foden is also sidelined with a virus, but could be available for the weekend, while Leroy Sane (knee) remains a long-term absentee.

Opta stats

This is the third successive season in which Manchester City and Shakhtar Donetsk have been drawn in the same Group of the UEFA Champions League. This is the first time that two teams have been drawn in the same UCL Group in three successive seasons since Real Madrid and Ajax were in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Manchester City have won three of their previous four UEFA Champions League meetings with Shakhtar Donetsk (L1) and have outscored their Ukrainian opponents by 12-2 over the four matches.

Manchester City scored the most goals (30) and had the best shot conversion rate (17%) in the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League.

This will be the ninth UEFA Champions League Group stage appearance for Shakhtar Donetsk since 2010/11, only not appearing in 2016/17 - in each of their last eight appearances they have alternated between successfully progressing past the Group Stage and being knocked out at this stage. If this run were to continue, they'd qualify for the Last 16 in 2019-20.

Shakhtar Donetsk have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their last 16 UEFA Champions League matches (33 goals conceded).

Gabriel Jesus scored a hat-trick for Manchester City in their last meeting against Shakhtar Donetsk in November 2018; a 6-0 win. Of the 73 Brazilian players to have scored 4+ goals in the UEFA Champions League, Jesus has the best minutes per goal ratio (124 mins per goal)

Charlie Nicholas' prediction

Manchester City found this one difficult last season. Shakhtar have always brought in a bit of pedigree but that is getting less and less as the years progress. They are not quite getting those names anymore and it takes away the creative ability that they were once dangerous with. They are not quite sure whether they should be contesting or not.

City will be badly winded after the Norwich game. Aymeric Laporte is a massive miss for them. I don't know why Pep Guardiola decided to leave Kevin de Bruyne out at the weekend. This will be a comfortable win to get the Premier League champions back on track.

CHARLIE PREDICTS: 0-4 (12/1 with Sky Bet)