Can Man City beat Real Madrid? | The FA Cups ‘fabulous weekend’ | Could Spurs injury returns lead to positive change?
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Welcome to Back Pages, bringing you everything you need to know about the biggest sports stories making the headlines in the morning's newspapers. I'm Chris Latcham and joining me are John Cross of The Mirror and The Athletic's Karl Anka. Welcome to you both. Let's start.

with the big tie in the Champions League and another instalment of the rivalry that emerged in this competition between Manchester City and Real Madrid. I like this headline in The Times: "Pep's not sure whether Unstable City can beat Real Madrid." One Spanish journalist is referring to this as the "modern Clásico". What are your thoughts, Carl, ahead of this one? Are Manchester City in a position to take Real Madrid?

Oh, yes, of course. I mean, even though this is not the Manchester City of the pomp of their treble winning season, this is still Pep Guardiola, who's highly regarded as one of the best football managers in the world, a team that has spent heavily in reinforcements in this January transfer window.

and in Champions League football anything can happen these matches between Real Madrid and Manchester City have brought some of the most interesting tactical matchups in recent Champions League games so I wouldn't count either team out here Pep Guardiola has the X's and O's acumen but Carlo Ancelotti and Real Madrid seem to have a certain something in this competition

Yeah, they certainly do. The Sun is also focusing on the big game between Real Madrid and Manchester City tomorrow, John. A whale of two cities, so it's a Dickens pun. City fans have enjoyed the best of times this season. They've had the worst of times. What's your view ahead of this game?

Yeah, I like that, actually. It's a good reflection of what the story says, really, because, you know, you've got Guardiola basically saying, at times we played really well this season and we played really badly, which I guess is obvious to anyone watching. But what I found really strange about Guardiola's comments here is that basically he is saying that his team is, in his words, unstable. And basically he says, in the past, I thought we could do it, but now I'm not sure. I mean, it's remarkable.

Lots of managers will have doubts about his players, about his teams and about his team's ability to get a result across the line. But they'll very rarely hear it publicly the night before, you know, arguably the biggest game of their season, really. And one which could, you know...

go a long way to shaping the future of Manchester City because City are not guaranteed by the Premier League to get back into next season's Champions League. So they've got to go deep into this competition. It is a classic rivalry, as you rightly say, Chris, because they've met four out of the last five seasons. So they know each other well. And there's no doubt in my mind, even though Real Madrid has sort of had a little bit of indifferent form themselves and not exactly built on perhaps winning the Champions League themselves.

But I think Manchester City, you just don't know what you're going to get. But I do think they're very frail defensively. I think they'll be nervous for this tie. And I do think a lot of the Etihad fans and people watching the game will probably share those nerves as well. And I think it'll be a jittery night, to be honest. Could well be. Carl, if we look at the Guardian's sport focus on this game in particular...

The Pep quote that it will be impossible to silence Vinicius Junior, Rodrigo, Mbappe and Bellingham, that attacking four for Real Madrid, particularly concerning to City fans when you look at what Arsenal did to them just, what, nine days ago? Yes, look, Real Madrid have recruited very, very well and both of their attacking units are one of the best in the world. We've just seen Manchester City have a somewhat unconvincing victory in the FA Cup against Real.

Leighton Orient. However, I do have to take a lot of Pep Guardiola's comments with a pinch of salt. This is something he's been doing for quite a while now, the Pep compliment, where he almost overdoes how much he adores the opposition team before revealing some sort of tactical trap he has in there. So we know all about Real Madrid's very, very, very, very, very talented players. However, we also know that Real Madrid, if they don't get the correct

a stroke of fortune with the offside trap, their tendency to overcommit players leaves them vulnerable to the counter-attack. I think this game could really, really be about who controls the transitions here. And this will be a game where I think both teams are going to go, whew, you can tell that Rodri's not playing. Hmm.

Yeah, definitely. Now, all rivalries need a little bit of spice. John, a little bit of spite. We saw it earlier in the season with Manchester City and Arsenal. I wonder if the spice from this one comes from the Ballon d'Or snub. If we go back a few months when Real Madrid thought that Vinicius Junior was going to win, Rodri of Manchester City won and they didn't turn up to the ceremony en masse. Yeah.

Yeah, I do think it gives it an edge. You cannot tell me that Vinicius Junior, if he feels so passionately that he and his teammates and indeed his whole club don't turn up for the ceremony, that they're still not bothered by this. Of course, it will give them extra momentum and desire to prove a point, I think, and show that, you know,

Basically, that ball at Ballinger, as far as they're concerned, was wrong, the vote, because it obviously went to Rodri. Listen, for what it's worth, I thought Rodri was such a worthy winner. We all know how amazing Vinicius Junior is as a footballer, as a forward. I just thought it was quite nice for a change to sort of kind of have the...

the anchor man, the most important player for club and country to win it. Not necessarily the most spectacular, but the most important. And so, look, he's missing, but Vinicius Junior and Real Madrid, I think, will be fired up for it. And I think it will give it a nice little edge, actually, because I do think these teams, you know, they've had so many close contests. They've had so many dramatic outcomes.

I think that actually that little bit of edge from their Ballon d'Or, I really think actually ramps it up even further. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, we've seen what it's done to Manchester City to lose Rodri. I wonder if you took Vinicius out of Real Madrid, would they be able to box and cox a little bit, slightly better?

more easily than Manchester City have found. That's probably a debate for another day. Ruben Diaz has had his say ahead of this one as well. He's backing Pep Guardiola's big guns to blast past Real, Carl. They have done that in previous seasons. They had a 4-0 win against them a couple of years back. Oh, yes. I mean...

When you look at Manchester City's victories over Real Madrid, the thing that really, really impresses is the strength and the intensity of the way they press. I remember one of their visits to the Bernabeu and they just simply camped in the final third and Real Madrid couldn't get the ball out of their half. It was a phenomenal tactical display. It was one of the best performances I've seen of Jack Grealish. Grealish himself hasn't had a great performance

year and a half, shall we say, in a Manchester City shirt. So it's not necessarily just the big guns, but also the role players. This is going to be a big game to see. Can Phil Foden affect things well? Not just can Erling Haaland score as many goals as we all know Erling Haaland can score. I'm really excited about this game. Really excited about it. What's your hunch, Carl? Oh, considering this is a first leg game,

I'm going to give home advantage. So I think Manchester City are going to get themselves a one goal lead to go into the second leg. Yeah, delighting the blue half of Manchester, John. Yeah, I'm so looking forward to this. I'm at this game tomorrow and I cannot wait. And I think City might just surprise us and edge it 2-1 without away goals counting these days. And obviously I had a great debate with someone about that the other day. Look, I think it will give them a nice edge. And I think that City will be so fired up for it. It's win or bust for them, isn't it?

Certainly is win or bust in the first ever of the Champions League playoff knockouts. We'd like to see him later in the competition meeting, but here we are. Let's focus again on the Times back page. City Cup reward for Plymouth Argyle. So Argyle had that absolutely incredible win over Liverpool on Sunday. The magic of the cup. It was certainly simmering at Home Park on Sunday, Carl. Is this the perfect draw for them? They get another big name or would they have preferred it back in their own ground?

Well, that's a really good question. I suppose you'd have to speak to the Plymouth fans. I read a fantastic piece from one fan who said this is the second time he's watched his team beat Liverpool, but there was a 60-plus year gap between the two fixtures. It was a phenomenal, phenomenal performance from Plymouth. I mean, Connor Hazard won the best goalkeeping performance I've seen in the FA Cup in my finite years on this planet. And...

Yeah. If you consider going to play Manchester City a reward on top of that and another opportunity to show how good some of these players can be when they're fired up for it, why not? Why not? I am thoroughly invested in so many of these Plymouth players and it's just been great to read stories from their fans considering, you know,

on more than one occasion, I'm sure John is seeing this as well, where you get the message at four o'clock in the morning where you're seeing Plymouth fans getting ready to wake up for the longest away trip in the English Pyramid. This is a fan base that has been through it and they've had one weekend where they've shown the world how brilliant their football club can be and it's been fantastic. Certainly is fantastic, John. They've got a really impressive young manager as well who's had a real lifetime full of stories.

Yeah, he has. I was at the game actually yesterday and it was a brilliant, brilliant story. You know, I love the fact that Ryan Hardy is sort of the goal hero basically. He said straight after the game, you know, as long as we're at home, unfortunately he didn't get at which, I'd like Man United next.

It was brilliant. You know, it was great stuff. The manager, you know, sort of saying afterwards, you know, he's only relatively recently in charge, isn't he? Basically saying, this is actually the best moment of my managerial career. Loving it. But basically, Millwall's more important to us than Liverpool because we're playing Millwall, fighting for our, you know, against relegation, fighting for our lives on Wednesday night, basically. It was really good. And look, I think it's been a fabulous weekend overall for the FA Cup. I really do. I think there's been so much talk before football

the tournament about, you know, the scrapping of replays for this season. Yes, the sort of the cash loss and what the sort of lower division clubs will lose out of that from the replay, from the kind of cash pot is certainly a massive blow. And I still think that sort of the big guns in the Premier League should address that. They haven't done yet.

more fall on them, really. But I do feel as if the way that it's structured, it goes straight to penalties. It focuses the mind. I think you're seeing better cup ties, more exciting cup ties. You know, ties aren't really going... We saw a couple on Saturday go to penalties, but not too many. And honestly, I think it's been great. I think the FA Cup is alive and well, especially when we get sort of kind of the smaller teams at home playing

potentially inflicting the giant killings on the big boys, really. But, you know, fifth round gets serious, some nice draws in there, and I think it's been a great few days for their breakup. Let's focus on Tottenham and Ange Postakoglu, who has taken a lot of the back pages over the past couple of weeks. Dreadful week for Tottenham Hotspur.

But Aj Postakoglu is hoping, hoping, hoping that he'll be able to bring back three big names over the weekend. James Madison, Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogi. They need something, don't they? Because he's admitted, Carl, they're absolutely exhausted, flat on their feet. Yes, it's been quite a difficult week for Spurs. Watching the game against Aston Villa, you were seeing plays like Son and Kulovetski. Just really exhausting.

to get to that fourth or fifth gear that you can see them at their best. This wasn't the Spurs that was so impressive towards the start of last season as well. There's been a lot of conversation about the injuries and how the medical team addresses the huge injury pileup. I think the majority of the injuries currently at Spurs are muscle injuries, which suggests something isn't quite going right in this probably use of the term red zone a lot as well. But if they can get more than the 11 to 14 players injured

fully fit out there, maybe Hans-Potter Kogli can bring about more of a positive change because they really need it. It was a really disappointing defeat against Aston Villa on the weekend. He's given his players a couple of days off, John, to go and recharge. Hopes that he has these three additional bodies in the building come the weekend. He needs to see a turnaround on the field as well.

Yeah, he does. It's the classic story. I do like it in the telegraph there that basically when things are going badly, oh, the outrage of giving players two days off, but my word, they need a rest. Because honestly, I do feel for Poster Coghlu in as much as that he has had a lot of demands on the players

He's had a lot of kind of, you know, those injuries. And at times he has been into double figures with missing players. But there is this debate, isn't there, about Poster Coghlu. And he sort of kind of, you know, started up after the Aston Villa game and that defeat. And that's sort of kind of the cup exit, the second in what space of four days about kind of, you know,

is he sort of kind of getting a fair deal? I have to say, I do think Pastor Cogloo's getting it wrong here. I think that basically this is Tottenham Hotspur we're talking about. They're 14th in the table. They've lost 13 Premier League games this season. In any other year, under any other circumstances, the Tottenham manager will be gone. Absolutely gone. They've now crashed out of the Carabao Cup, going out of the semi-final stage, now out of the FA Cup. So they're pinning all of their hope

on returning players and the Europa League. And I find it actually baffling that basically not more is being made, frankly, of the injury list and why those injuries are occurring. We know the way that Postacoglu sets up his teams. We know that he's physically demanding and how much they press. And they're incredibly exciting to watch. I'm a big fan of his, I have to say. And

but he works those players hard and surprise, surprise, they're getting injured. And I sympathise he hasn't got the biggest squad in the world and as big as some of their rivals, but honestly, the results have not been good enough. And I admire Spurs fans actually for sticking with him. I know they're sort of kind of targeting Daniel Levy as the kind of target number one of their ire at the moment, but I actually think they've given Postacoglu

a very, very fair ride, be very understanding. And I actually think the Spurs fans actually to stay this loyal through an incredibly difficult season has been remarkable. I have to ask you both about the comments that Postacoglu made as well about media agendas against his team and the way that the media have reported on the difficulties that they've faced. Is there an agenda against Tottenham Hotspur, Karl?

You can tell by the sound of my voice. My response to this is always what makes, what takes things past the point of opinion and towards an agenda. And I think Mr. Crust has raised a very, very good point. Yes, this is a Tottenham team that has a lot of injuries, but...

If you are playing a style of football that asks for a very, very highly intensive press and is relying on two or three individuals to make sure that press works and to make sure huge amounts of ground are being covered, surely it's best to cover them up in cotton wool in between games rather than to play these players into the ground. A lot of what Tottenham do when defending against the counter-attack relies on Mickey van de Ven's hamstrings coping with the load. Now, when you are...

We're talking right now and we are far past the point of the amount of games played from this Spurs team is far past the point of what they played last season. This is not a large squad and they needed greater depth and the fact they only just managed to get some depth in January leads me to believe things have gone awry. Now you can

I do not know Tottenham Hotspur as well as Tottenham Hotspur fans, so they can tell me this is an agenda. But there are very legitimate questions from people on the outside looking in going, what on earth is going on at Tottenham Hotspur? Because it's quite baffling.

Hmm. I wonder if there could be a silver lining with Tottenham having to go to the well, John, in a sense that we've seen so many young players, teenagers getting key minutes because they have to, because they don't have enough bodies on the ground next season, perhaps even the season after that. Could we see the fruit of all of this?

Yeah, I do think so, Chris. I think that Mikey Moore has been a super talent, hasn't he? You know, he's potentially what then England's sort of star of the future. I do think he's a great player. Archie Gray, I think personally, would have learned so much from this. Classically, I think he's regarded long-term as a six.

But I think that basically in playing in both full-back positions, even filling in at centre-half, I think that's a football education right there. And I think he's going to be a really good player. I actually get it with Ange, what he's saying. He basically says, if you trust in me and trust in these players, they'll come out the other side and be a stronger team.

for it. You see, there I go again with my, you know, sort of Spurs agenda, really. I think if there is an agenda, I think it's pro-Postacoglu. I actually think there's some sympathy and understanding there. He's very good, actually, with

the media. He does a lot pre-match. He's not so good in front of the cameras to win or lose post-match, I have to say, because he struggles, I think, really to kind of really sum up what he thinks and what he believes and what he says after games. But I do think that he's had a lot of sympathy and understanding from the media. And I'm ever so surprised that, you know, I think he does look at the media quite a lot, and I'm surprised that you can't see it. Because honestly, I think he's had a bit of understanding there. And

And look, I think Spurs could still win the Europa League. I genuinely do. Because I think if they get some players back, I've got massive sympathy because of the injury list. They've missed their defence, virtually all of it, for so much of the season. They are a good team when they've got their first 11 out.

I want to bring your focus to the Guardian and a story that raised my eyebrows when I saw it earlier on is John Eustace of Blackburn Rovers, sixth place in the championship, going for a place in the playoffs, looking like he's going to swap that, Carl, for Derby County in the relegation zone. What do you make of this? This one's a head-scratcher for me.

The Derby County job has been a difficult one. Many managers have come and gone recently as Derby are trying to re-establish themselves in the English football pyramid and eventually, hopefully, return to the Premier League. And I can only tell you that it's due to Eustace's playing history with Derby that that's part of the appeal. John would know more than me. Can you help me make sense of this one?

Well, I think it's interesting, Carl, isn't it? Basically, I think Eustace has had talks with Blackburn and the inference being that he doesn't think that Blackburn can give him the guarantees of ambition and kind of, you know, sort of kind of determination to push the club forward, to convince him to stay. So he clearly thinks he's got better long-term, you know, options at Derby County. Listen, they're two massive clubs, aren't they, in the championship? Mm-hmm. You know,

Are they comparable? I would probably argue that they are. You know, I know that's going to upset both sets of fans there in one fell swoop. But I do think there's a massive club at Derby. So it's not as if he's leaving, you know, I realise he's leaving two different parts of the table, but I do think he's kind of switching one for a comparable another club. And he clearly, you know,

feels that there's not enough ambition against Blackburn. Blackburn have had a go back, but it is an interesting soap opera. But I think he'll be derby manager very soon. Yeah, I do too. This will please you, John. You like your Arsenal, you like Saka and you like your headlines. They call him the star boy, but the male and the son are both calling Bukayo Saka scar boy because we could see the long scar on his hamstring surgery.

Oh, gosh. Yeah, that made me wince actually looking at that. I think Bakayo Saka might just be one of my favourite players in the world. I think he's a lovely player, beautiful sort of kind of technique, wonderful smile on his face. And I think he's such a nice character. You know, he's really, you know, one that I think the fans want to. Brilliant for England.

quite apart from Arsenal as well. Look, I think it's nice to see him kind of back in the gym, Arsenal in Dubai at the moment, and he's clearly working his way back towards fitness. I still think it's going to be kind of, even if he's training a little bit, stepping up towards the end of the month, I think we won't see him back on the pitch, if you like, until mid-March, until sort of kind of the back end of the season. Whether he can then come back and sort of kind of, you know, sharp and focused and in form enough is,

to kind of push Arsenal to a really good finish. Let's see, because honestly, on his day, he's got world-class quality. Brilliant player, great character, Saka. Yeah, feels irreplaceable for Arsenal, doesn't he? I think we're going to leave it there, gentlemen. John Cross, absolute pleasure. Karl, my first time doing this show with you. Thank you so much for joining us on Back Pages tonight.