Schalke 04 will face Manchester City at Veltins Arena Stadium, in Gelsenkirchen, in the Champions League 1/8-Finals. Schalke 04 against Manchester City is always the match with big interest, especially during this season. Review our thoughts on this match here below. Schalke 04 Schalke 04 this season playing very unconfident football, however, they are in Champions League playoffs. In the Bundesliga, they are now at 14th place and that is far away from their best form. During this season they already lost 11 times, 5 matches played in a draw, and won only 6 games. They play very poorly and badly, so it’s strange that such a team plays in the Champions League and just got out of the group. Of course, they were lucky with the group, as there were no super teams in it, all the rivals were about the same level. Schalke 04 is facing absents crisis, as a lot of players of the team are injured now. B. Stambouli, A. Schopf, S. Skrzybski and B. Embolo will miss the match due to injuries. Suat Serdar has a red card suspension in Bundesliga till the end of the season. F. Di Santo is loaned to Rayo Vallecano and Naldo is set to help Monaco till the end of the season. The Royal Blues this season is good at creating long shots opportunities and protecting the lead. However, they have weaknesses at avoiding individual errors, defending against attacks down the wings and through ball attacks. Very likely that Schalke will take more long shots, try to attack through the middle and play aggressive football. Manchester City Manchester City this season is going to take Premier League trophy as they are set to fight and win every opponent. The last match in PL was against Chelsea, one of the top teams in England, and they won against them with 6:0 result. They look very confident and strong in all pitch positions, even now when De Bruyne is back after an injury. The City has the second-best defense in the highest England league and strongest attack with 74 goals in 27 matches, which is an incredible result. This season in Champions League group stage Manchester took the first place with 13 points and only one surprisingly loss against Lyon. In 6 matches they scored 16 and conceded 6 goals. They shoot in average 18.5 times per game, pass with 89.9% accuracy and possess with 58.8 percentage. Only Claudio Bravo and Vincent Kompany will miss this match. This isn’t big trouble for the Blues, as they have great players to change them. This season Manchester City is showing lots of confidence at finishing scoring chances, attacking down the wings, creating long shot opportunities and defending set pieces. They are facing troubles at avoiding offside, aerial duels, protecting the lead and stopping from creating chances. Very likely that they will control the game in the opposition’s half, play possessional football, and play non-aggressively. H2H In far 2008 year these teams met for the first and only one time in UEFA Europa League and even then Manchester City was stronger and won the match with 2:0 result. One of the most interesting facts, that Leroy Sane is Schalke former player and could probably show up at the first eleven in this match. Read more about Champions League matches at SmashingTip.