Marseille vs Manchester City Predictions

• Man City kept just two clean sheets in eight matches in all competitions this season.
• Both teams scored in 100% of Man City’s last eight Champions League fixtures.
• Man City won three of their last four Champions League away assignments.
• Marseille scored at least once in 16 of their last 18 competitive home matches.

Marseille’s disappointing start

André Villas-Boas’ Marseille would have fancied their chances at finishing second in Group C behind favourites Manchester City, though their 1-0 reverse at Olympiakos on match day one means the Ligue 1 giants are already playing catch up.

Marseille never really got going in their defeat in Greece, hitting the target just twice from 10 attempts on a disappointing evening, though a narrow 1-0 triumph at Lorient back in their homeland at the weekend will have gone some way to restoring any lost confidence.

While goals have been hard to come by on the road of late, Marseille’s record of scoring in 16 of their last 18 competitive matches at the Stade Veledrome suggests they play with an attacking verve at home that should cause Man City a problem or two this week.

City targeting successive wins

Manchester City’s domestic form continues to stutter, though the Citizens managed to squeeze three points out of their first continental clash of the campaign last week in a 3-1 win over Porto that was a closer run thing than the final score suggests.

Pep Guardiola’s team looked uncharacteristically flat in their subsequent 1-1 draw at West Ham on Saturday however – a result that did little to improve their defensive record that now reads just two clean sheets in eight assignments in all competitions this term.

City were boosted by the early return of Kevin de Bruyne from injury at the London Stadium however, and having featured off the bench against the Irons, the Belgian maestro is expected to start on Tuesday.

Goals at either end anticipated

Man City’s lingering problems at the back remain a major cause for concern and the Citizens’ chances of keeping Marseille off the scoresheet this week feel slim.

Alongside their underwhelming defensive record this term, City have conceded in each of their last eight Champions League fixtures and the Citizens shutout their opponents just three times in their last 16 games in the competition in total since 2018.

City do of course, wield a forward line so potent than many of their defensive issues are masked, and the Citizens – who saw both teams score in 100% of their last eight UCL matches – have only failed to register on two occasions in the tournament since 2016.

The underlying numbers, alongside City’s penchant for mixing brilliant attacking play with substandard defending, makes the both teams to score market an excellent option for Tuesday’s game, while our correct score prediction backs Guardiola’s charges to make it two wins from two with a 2-1 triumph in France.

With an average of 2.3 goals scored per 90 minutes across their last eight Champions League fixtures, City’s have a healthy final third output in the competition to draw confidence from, and having won three of their last four European assignments on the road, another positive result looks on.