Under-fire City must revive fading season in Kiev

Manchester City must put a potentially ruinous fortnight behind them as they seek to reboot their faltering season with a big performance in their Champions League last-16, first leg trip to Dynamo Kiev today.

With their English Premier League title hopes badly dented by successive home losses to fellow contenders Leicester City and Tottenham, City received heavy criticism for fielding a second-string team in Sunday’s embarrassing FA Cup capitulation at Chelsea.

Suddenly, the lavishly-funded team who had been campaigning for a ‘quadruple’ of titles finds their season in danger of careering off the rails with manager Manuel Pellegrini brought to task by a former England great over his moans about the club’s fixture congestion.

Alan Shearer, the Premier League’s all-time leading scorer, criticised City’s approach, telling the BBC he could not understand Pellegrini’s decision to start six teenagers in the team which was thrashed 5-1 at Chelsea.

“Barcelona played on Saturday and they face Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday (yesterday). It’s the same amount of time (between games) as City, but they didn’t rest any players,” Shearer said.

“I don’t get the talk of resting players.