I never feel like we play well when we aren't just marauding forward with reckless abandon. We don't look comfortable or in control. This game is awkward as fuck.
We should be very confident that only a complete disaster puts us out, but I'm going to walk through the negative scenarios, knowing that the odds are still strongly in our favour.
I often find that players are unable to put out of their minds what the scoreline is and what is required for to kill the tie. Our players need to realise that a goal at virtually any point in the game destroys City's chances. If they don't I feel there is a good chance we sit way deeper than Jurgen will want us to. Its just human nature. We saw it in the second half last week. Jurgen screaming for our players to use the ball wisely and move the line up. Instead we sat deep and hurled low percentage long balls up from defence, completely bypassing the midfield, and not giving our defence time to push out. There is a high risk we do that either right from the kick-off or not long after if City get any pressure on us.
The impact of the first goal. Of course if we score it, then the tie is essentially over, but if City score it, and particularly if they get it inside the first 25 minutes, can be huge. I have seen our team and others, drop even further when defending a big lead. We saw it against Sevilla twice this year, handing the inititative to a team with momentum and the quality of players that can punish. Two or three goals can come quickly from this city team, we know that from earlier in the season, they can swarm you.
Should we adopt a different approach? I refer to my original point. We are not that good at anything but all out attack, and so far this season, that approach is the only one that has had success against city.
So lets just go at them, and lets hope that our players don't care what happens at the wrong end, and just keep hammering at City even if we are 1, 2, or 3 goals down. The only number that really matters is how many goals we have.