City to Fall Short: 3 Reasons to avoid backing Manchester City for 2025 Champions League triumph

Manchester City are the bookies favourites to win the Champions League in the 2024/25 campaign, with this being the case for some time now given the wealth of talent their squad possesses.

Pep Guardiola’s side have been the most consistent and best team in the world for a number of years, however this doesn’t mean everyone should be jumping at the chance on City to claim their second CL title this campaign.

Champions League Winner Odds 2024/25

Odds courtesy of Sky Bet. Correct at time of publishing and subject to change.

2025 Schedule Not Kind to Citizens

Man City head into the first few months of 2025 with a really tricky schedule in the Premier League.

Over the course of five games from January 25th to February 25th, Man City play all of Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool and Spurs, with two of these coming away from home.

This coincides with the start of the Champions League knockouts, and given Guardiola seems to have a slight preference to winning the league over the CL, expect City to potentially rest their starters in that competition to prioritise the PL.

This could lead to City taking their foot off the gas slightly in Europe, which combined with a tough draw could City looking at an early exit.

FA Cup Could Lead to Costly Congestion

In addition to the fixtures already stated above, City are also likely to make it far in the FA Cup, something they’ve done in each of the past few seasons.

The FA Cup fourth and fifth rounds are taking place directly during this run of games for City, something that could only add to their woes in terms of fixture congestion.

They are most likely going to have their PL games rescheduled to fit these games in, which leads to even further congestion down the line later in the season, something that also saw City come undone when they played Spurs in their second-last game of the 2023/24 campaign.

This, in turn, could lead to City simply having too many games in a short space of time, something that could very well contribute to their downfall in Europe.

Injuries Could Prove Fatal with City Squad Size

One of the biggest misconceptions with City is the claims that they succeed because they have a huge squad with multi-million pound players in every position.

This hasn’t proven to be the case for some time now, with City regularly using the same 15/16 players for the last few years, with the players involved changing slightly each time.

The fixture pile-up they’re likely to experience late-on in the season could lead to a number of injuries throughout the squad, something that could prove to be the factor that sees City become stuck in their attempts to succeed on all fronts this year, particularly with the Champions League.