Last week’s Champions League semi-final first legs provided us with lots of entertaining drama as Real Madrid drew 1-1 at home with Manchester City whereas Milan City AC Milan was given a blow with a 2-0 defeat at home in hot Milan derby against city rivals Inter.
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Let’s take a look at what can we expect from this week’s second legs, as we narrow it down to four points to look at.
Does Pep Guardiola stick to his first leg best eleven or twist?
All the evidence from this season suggests that Pep Guardiola will stick with the same side that drew in Madrid last week.
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However, over a long period, now of Pep-watching has led to lingering doubts about whether the Manchester City genius will go full 4D chess on Wednesday.
His crazy 4-2-4 against Real Madrid whilst Bayern Munich boss, starting Eric García in the quarter-finals against Lyon and not playing Rodri in 2021 final were all brainfart moments from the Catalan coach.
During this campaign, however, Guardiola has opted to remain loyal to a select band of players in their hunt for football’s ultimate club prize.
That means that Jack Grealish will most likely be given the nod on the left-hand side to go for round two in his bout with Dani Carvajal.
John Stones and Rodri will sit at the base of midfield with Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gündoğan up ahead, with Kyle Walker named at right-back to deal with Vinícius Júnior’s pace and trickery.
Or Kalvin Phillips will come into the team as captain and we’ll be having the debate about Pep’s mental pre-game anguish for another 12 months.
Will Romelu Lukaku get his chance at European football against AC Milan?
Since the start of April, no player in Serie A has been involved in more goals than Romelu Lukaku.
The Belgium international has been on fire during the season’s home straight, scoring five and assisting four more making it nine goals involvement.
And yet in the Champions League this season, the 30-year-old has been used sparingly by coach Simeone Inzaghi.
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Lukaku has yet to start a game in Europe this term, playing only 120 minutes collectively across six appearances.
Last time out against Milan, Inzaghi opted to start with Lautaro Martinez and Edin Džeko in a front two with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Hakan Çalhanoğlu in support.
It worked perfectly with two goals coming inside the opening 11 minutes as they won the match with a 0-2 margin going into the second leg Tuesday evening.
With the Rossoneri needing to take the game to Inter, however, will Inzaghi pad out his defensive line a little more and leave the attacking to the Nerazzurri’s ultimate poacher?
Can Milan turn things around away to Inter?
It has been a pretty rough six days for Milan.
First half performance in last week’s first-leg semi-final against Inter saw them go 2-0 down in the blink of an eye.
Stefano Pioli’s side never recovered from those early lapses in concentration and carried that mental tardiness over into their Serie A fixture at the weekend too.
The Rossoneri, with a place in the top four on the line, were humbled by relegation-threatened Spezia, a result that angered the travelling away fans.
After the game, Milan Ultras was seen remonstrating with the squad about their performance with a forlorn set of players looking like would rather be anywhere else.
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That’s the context in which Milan now takes on their city rivals in what is easily their biggest game in a decade.
There may be a slither of good news for them with Rafael Leão looking likely to return in attack. But will it be enough?
Is Eduardo Camavinga’s weekend injury a blow for Real Madrid?
There was mass panic amongst Real Madrid supporters on Saturday as Eduardo Camavinga was taken off late in their 1-0 win over Getafe.
Camavinga was sensational in the first leg at Santiago Bernabéu with the French youngster neutralising Bernardo Silva and adding considerably to Los Blancos’ attacking threat.
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The 20-year-old filled in at left-back, a regular occurrence of late, and produced one of the performances of the season.
But as he went down holding his knee at the weekend, Carlo Ancelotti and his staff were fretting as to just how bad the injury was.
Conflicting reports came out over the weekend from various sources but it seems now that Camavinga will be fit enough to play on Wednesday.
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Where, and for exactly how long though, remain up in the air, with some sections of the Spanish media suggesting he could be brought into midfield to try and deal with Kevin De Bruyne.
