Manchester city managed to book their place in the last 16 of the Champions League by managing a 4-2 win over Viktoria Plzen. This was an unconvincing win for the team at home, which was especially poor for Manuel Pellegrini. City have been extremely good at home this campaign and they have scored close to 30 goals in the league alone. There are expected to dominate this encounter, but the underdogs of this group – Viktoria Plzen – managed to almost cause an upset by scoring two goals.

After the match, midfielder James Milner has said that City should be happy that they have qualified for the knockout stages, but they should also try and finish top of the group. Such a position will give them an advantage in the knockout stages since the second match will be at home. The chance of finishing top of the group is certainly not out of the hands for city. They can claim this spot by beating Bayern Munich, who are regarded as the best team in the world right now. City were beaten by the Germans 3-1 at the Etihad stadium earlier in the season and it will be an even tougher prospect to beat them at the Allianz arena.

“I think it would help to come top in the group, it will be tough out there but hopefully we can go out there and give Bayern Munich a game and see what happens. Joe Hart has just kept going, worked hard and made good saves when he gets the chance. He is a great professional,” said Milner. “It was a hard game, but the most important thing was to finish our home games in the group with a win,” said Nasri.

However, Milner is confident of causing an upset after English teams have had the upper hand over Germans in recent years.

Manchester City midfielder James Milner says that he is very much looking forward to England’s friendly match against Scotland, which will be happening after a gap of 14 years. Milner was part of the under 16 team that managed a victory against Scotland back in 2001. Back then, the team also featured the likes of Tom Huddlestone and Aaron Lennon. England won the match 4-2 and Milner is hoping for a return of the same this time around. After being part of the several youth teams for England in the past, Milner is now a recognised player in the senior team.

At 27 years of age, the midfielder has 38 England caps to his name. He is expected to be one of the first names in the squad for the 2014 World Cup. Milner has recalled several great occasions in which England have played against Scotland. His memory especially recalled the Euro 96 in which England managed to score in an extraordinary fashion. Goalkeeper David Seaman had just saved a penalty and England went down the other end and scored through Paul Gascoigne. Milner will be coming up against established Premier league names like James Morrison, who plays for West Brom.

Morrison will be one of the important players for Scotland. He has 27 international caps to his name.

“They are the games you want to play in, when there is the passion and you are getting booed by the opposition. That’s what you want and it makes you want to keep the away fans quiet. It’ll be great, with a few Scotland fans there, so there should be a really good atmosphere. I remember Euro ’96, it was a great occasion. The penalty save from Seaman then we go up the other end and get an amazing goal from Gazza,” said Milner.

The Premier league title race is almost over after Manchester City suffered a 3-1 defeat against Tottenham during the weekend. This defeat gives Manchester United the opportunity to win the title if they manage victory against Aston Villa in their match. Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini was astonished with the way his team suffered a defeat in the match especially considering that they were leading with only 25 min to go. However, City suffered the embarrassment of conceding three goals in the space of just 6 min to lose the match.

After the match, Mancini was a loss to explain the reason for suffering such a defeat. He blamed the attitude of the players in the second half of the match. Clint Dempsey equalised for Tottenham and it did not take long for the London team to take the advantage. A goal from Jermain Defoe helped them take a 2-1 lead, while Gareth Bale – who has been nominated for the PFA player of the year award – scored the third goal of the match to secure all three points for the team. This was a massive boost for Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas, as his team are currently chasing a top four spot.

Mancini said after the match that United will be worthy winners of the title.

“It is incredible that we lost this game because we had everything under control for 80 minutes. We had a lot of chances to score a second goal, but this is football. If you don’t close the game it can happen like today. The championship was finished three or four weeks ago. They deserve to win this championship. They are not a better team but they deserve to win this title because we lost a lot of points in games we probably didn’t deserve to lose,” said Mancini.