B Monchengladbach v Man City predictions: Struggling Gladbach good for goals

Free football tips, best bets and analysis for Borussia Monchengladbach v Manchester City in the Champions League on Wednesday.

Where to watch

BT Sport 2, 8pm Wednesday

Best bet

Man City to win and both teams to score
1pt 17-10 Betway

Team news

Borussia Monchengladbach
Mamadou Doucoure is out. Marcus Thuram is a doubt with a knee problem.

Man City
Nathan Ake is injured. Kevin de Bruyne and Sergio Aguero are set to be on the bench.

Match preview

Marco Rose's decision to walk away from Monchengladbach in the summer has caused an obvious dip in the Bundesliga club's form which Manchester City can fully exploit in neutral Budapest.

Fans of the Foals said they would have built a statue in honour of their beloved head coach, whose 18 months in charge at Borussia-Park have been little short of a triumph.

But when the hugely popular Rose announced a few weeks ago that he is off to Borussia Dortmund at the end of the campaign, Gladbach's world fell in - even though it was one of the worst-kept secrets in German football.

And it doesn't appear to be just supporters who feel betrayed by the boss's impending move - the players also seem to have downed tools.

They head into the Puskas Arena – the Covid crisis having wrecked any hope of home advantage – on their worst run of form of the season, just in time to welcome a Manchester City side who are absolutely rampant.

It's desperately hard to envisage anything other than a 19th straight win for City, who are predictably no sort of value over 90 minutes.

And it's also hard to envisage anything other than goals on the grounds that Gladbach have already proved in the Champions League they can't keep good teams out and they boast the worst defensive record of any team in the Bundesliga top eight.

Over 2.5 goals is around a 1-2 chance, City and over 2.5 goals is odds-on but City and both teams to score at 17-10 is definitely worth consideration.

Gladbach have the tools to score a goal or two and the holes at the back to leak plenty. Their group games averaged over four goals per game and they shipped at least two in all four of their showdowns with Real Madrid and Inter Milan.

Both teams have scored in 17 of their 22 Bundesliga games this season including six of their last eight.

Rose's men have always been easy on the eye and were top-four challengers in January after they beat Bayern Munich 3-2 and Dortmund 4-2 in the space of a few weeks.

The goals may have dried up for Alassane Plea – who scored five in the group stage but has managed just one in his last 11 league games – and Marcus Thuram, but Lars Stindl was still finding the net from off the front man and they are all the more inventive with Jonas Hofmann fully fit.

But the last couple of weeks, since Rose's entirely predicted bombshell, have been a major setback.

The points spread for four matches against Union Berlin, Cologne, Wolfsburg and Mainz would probably have been somewhere around seven to eight. Instead they wound up with two, losing both home assignments against Cologne, their derby foe, and Mainz, both of whom are in the division's bottom five. Gladbach now find themselves nine points off Frankfurt in fourth.

Key stat

Man City have won 18 matches in a row.

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