Mark Langdon's Manchester City v Chelsea Champions League final predictions

Champions League final betting tips & analysis from Racing Post's Mark Langdon.

Best bet

C Azpilicueta to be carded
1pt 11-4 general

What will Pep Guardiola have lined-up for the Champions League final against Chelsea?

It's often said Pep over-thinks the biggest matches and sometimes it works, and, well, sometimes it doesn't.

He won his first Champions League with Barcelona in 2009 with midfield powerhouse Yaya Toure playing as a centre-back and Carles Puyol at right-back and nobody said then he was too clever for his own good.

It has been a different story in City's frustrations with the Champions League. Fernandinho popped up at left-back as they conceded three away goals to Monaco in 2017 and Aleksandar Kolarov was at centre-back in a four-man defence for the return leg which ended in failure.

A year later and Aymeric Laporte was out of position at left-back as City crumbled to a 3-0 defeat at Anfield, Liverpool scoring all of their goals in the opening 31 minutes, and Guardiola also made a controversial call at the time in dropping Raheem Sterling for Ilkay Gundogan and using Gabriel Jesus up front rather than Sergio Aguero.

Fast-forward another year and Vincent Kompany and Kevin De Bruyne found themselves on the bench for a 1-0 defeat at Spurs, where makeshift left-back Fabian Delph was partly at fault for a strike which would eventually prove costly as Tottenham won on away goals.

And then last season, almost out of the blue, Guardiola ditched his usual formation to switch to a back three which matched up against much inferior opposition in the form of Lyon with Fernandinho and Eric Garcia alongside Laporte in a peculiar selection.

It almost certainly wouldn't have mattered had Sterling scored an open goal, but he missed and therefore ultimate tinkerman Guardiola was once again criticised for pushing the boundaries of tactical nuances.

So what does he do in Porto for the final?

Stick to what has won him the Premier League and League Cup this season as well as progress to the Champions League final or deviate to something else in a bid to surprise opposite number Thomas Tuchel, who has won both meetings against Pep since he became Chelsea manager?

What we do know is the last final between Tuchel and Guardiola - the 2015-16 German Cup between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich - went to penalties after a goalless 120 minutes and the draw looks a decent runner in what should be a low-scoring clash.

However, perhaps a better bet is Cesar Azpilicueta to be carded. He was booked against City in the FA Cup semi-final and found himself entering the notebook in his last two matches with a yellow card against Leicester and red at Aston Villa last week.

Last season he was cautioned in the Super Cup and the FA Cup final and appears to be getting dirtier has he gets older.

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