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Manchester City Official Brian Marwood Hails ‘Amazing’ Tie With Europa League Holders Porto
The club's chief football operations officer is looking forward to a "big game" against the Portuguese champions and is confident players will thrive during the busy schedule
16-Dec-2011 7:25:00 PM
By Oliver Platt
Getty Images
Manchester City chief football operations officer Brian Marwood has described the club's Europa League draw against tournament holders Porto as an "amazing" tie.
City were knocked out of the Champions League after finishing third in a difficult group that included Bayern Munich, Napoli and Villarreal and things will not get much easier as they look ahead to meeting the Portuguese champions.
"It’s amazing isn’t it, to have drawn the holders," he told Sky Sports.
"We’ve gone through probably the hardest group in the Champions League, and we’re disappointed not to have got to the next stage and now we get the holders in the Europa League last 32.
"It’s a big game for the club and one that we’ll be taking seriously as Roberto [Mancini] said after we were knocked out of the Champions League.
"It is a tough schedule. The one thing we haven’t had to endure is going through the earlier rounds, where you do play an awful lot of games, as we have done in the past.
"That can be very hard, no matter how big your squad is. I think it’s something that we’ll certainly look forward to, Porto are a very attractive opposition as the holders."
He joked: "We’re just thinking maybe if we do Chelsea a favour by giving them all the information on Napoli, maybe Andre Villas-Boas will tell us all about Porto!"
The draw for the last 16 of the competition was also made, with City facing either Sporting Lisbon or Legia Warsaw if they can progress past Porto, but Marwood was keeping his sights set on the initial tie.
"I don’t think we can look beyond Porto," he said. "Obviously the last 16 draw has been made, but we’ll leave that for another time and focus on Porto.
"It’s going to be two games home and away amongst a lot of fixtures over the next three months and they’re all games we’re really looking forward to.
"We came into the season knowing we’d be in four competitions and we’ll go in to the New Year still in four competitions and that’s something the club are trying to build upon with the success in the FA Cup last year."
Marwood was unconcerned about the potential impact of Wednesday and Thursday night fixtures on the squad, pointing out that the players would rather be playing games than training anyway.
"Wednesday nights are fine, we’ve got no issues about that," he said.
"6pm kick-offs are obviously difficult for our fans, with people having to go to work and then get to the stadium, which isn’t going to be easy.
"It’s something we’re obviously aware of but they’re the rules that are imposed upon us, so we’ll have to go along with that.
City were knocked out of the Champions League after finishing third in a difficult group that included Bayern Munich, Napoli and Villarreal and things will not get much easier as they look ahead to meeting the Portuguese champions.
"It’s amazing isn’t it, to have drawn the holders," he told Sky Sports.
"We’ve gone through probably the hardest group in the Champions League, and we’re disappointed not to have got to the next stage and now we get the holders in the Europa League last 32.
"It’s a big game for the club and one that we’ll be taking seriously as Roberto [Mancini] said after we were knocked out of the Champions League.
"It is a tough schedule. The one thing we haven’t had to endure is going through the earlier rounds, where you do play an awful lot of games, as we have done in the past.
"That can be very hard, no matter how big your squad is. I think it’s something that we’ll certainly look forward to, Porto are a very attractive opposition as the holders."
He joked: "We’re just thinking maybe if we do Chelsea a favour by giving them all the information on Napoli, maybe Andre Villas-Boas will tell us all about Porto!"
The draw for the last 16 of the competition was also made, with City facing either Sporting Lisbon or Legia Warsaw if they can progress past Porto, but Marwood was keeping his sights set on the initial tie.
"I don’t think we can look beyond Porto," he said. "Obviously the last 16 draw has been made, but we’ll leave that for another time and focus on Porto.
"It’s going to be two games home and away amongst a lot of fixtures over the next three months and they’re all games we’re really looking forward to.
"We came into the season knowing we’d be in four competitions and we’ll go in to the New Year still in four competitions and that’s something the club are trying to build upon with the success in the FA Cup last year."
Marwood was unconcerned about the potential impact of Wednesday and Thursday night fixtures on the squad, pointing out that the players would rather be playing games than training anyway.
"Wednesday nights are fine, we’ve got no issues about that," he said.
"6pm kick-offs are obviously difficult for our fans, with people having to go to work and then get to the stadium, which isn’t going to be easy.
"It’s something we’re obviously aware of but they’re the rules that are imposed upon us, so we’ll have to go along with that.
"We know that we’re pretty much going to be playing two games a week for the next two or three months, so to have the extra day before the Premier League matches at the weekend is probably better for us.
"It comes with the territory, if you’re in these competitions then it’s something I think everybody’s looking forward to.
"People talk very negatively about this tournament, but we’re not viewing it that way. We’re looking at it extremely positively and it’s something that we’re enjoying being in.
"I think the players prefer playing games than they do training and we’ve certainly got plenty of those coming up."
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