We kick off against the German side at 20:00 (UK) at the Red Bull Arena with the return leg at the Etihad in three weeks on Tuesday 14 March.
City travelled without Kevin De Bruyne and Aymeric Laporte due to illness and John Stones as he continues his recovery from a hamstring injury.
Manuel Akanji, Nathan Ake and Riyad Mahrez have all been recalled to the side while Phil Foden drops down to the bench.
LINE-UPS
RB LEIPZIG XI: Blaswich, Klostermann, Orban, Gvardiol, Halstenberg, Laimer, Schlager, Szoboszlai, Forsberg, Silva, Werner.
Subs: Nyland, Nickisch, Simakan, Haidara, Poulsen, Nkunku, Raum, Henrichs, Kampl.
CITY XI: Ederson, Walker, Akanji, Dias, Ake, Rodrigo, Gundogan, Bernardo, Mahrez, Grealish, Haaland
Subs: Ortega Moreno, Carson, Phillips, Alvarez, Gomez, Perrone, Foden, Charles, Palmer, Lewis, Robertson
Tactics
Illness unfortunately forced Guardiola to change his side with Laporte and De Bruyne left behind in Manchester.
The City boss may stick with a similar formation with potentially Ake taking up the left-back role and Manuel Akanji playing alongside Ruben Dias in the centre of defence.
That would push Bernardo Silva further forward into midfield to play alongside Ilkay Gundogan and ahead of Rodri.
Mahrez is likely to come in on the right wing with Jack Grealish the other side of central striker Erling Haaland.
Expected goals
We’ve only had two matches against RB Leipzig before, but both sides scored in both fixtures with a total of 12 goals.
RB Leipzig won the last encounter, 2-1 in December 2021 with City winning the previous clash 6-3 at the Etihad.
The Red Bull Arena is also a happy hunting ground for Erling Haaland with the Norwegian scoring twice on both his appearances there with Borussia Dortmund. He also scored twice when the two sides met in the 2021 German Cup final.
Leipzig’s top scorer Christopher Nkunku, who scored a hat-trick at the Etihad last time, returned from injury at the weekend but starts on the bench.
Match stats
RB Leipzig have been drawn against English opposition in the Round of 16 for the third time. After winning both games against Spurs in 2019/20, the German side were beaten in both legs by Liverpool in the 2020/21 campaign.
City have only lost one of their previous 17 matches against German sides in the Champions League (W14 D2), scoring an average of 2.6 goals per game across these fixtures. Their only defeat came away to RB Leipzig in last season’s group stage (1-2), when we had already qualified for the knockout stages going into that fixture.
After winning their first three matches in the knockout stages of the Champions League, RB Leipzig have lost each of their last three without scoring a goal – 0-3 v Paris Saint-Germain in the 2019/20 semi-final and two 0-2 defeats v Liverpool in the last 16 in 2020/21.
Among managers to have taken charge of 50+ games in the Champions League, Guardiola has the highest win percentage in the competition’s history (63% - 97 wins from 154 games).
RB Leipzig have won each of their last four matches in the UFA Champions League, their longest ever winning run in the competition. Only Julian Nagelsmann in 2019/20 – when they reached the semi-final – has won more matches in a single Champions League campaign (6) in charge of RB Leipzig than Marco Rose this term (4).
Since the start of last season, only Kingsley Coman (18) has created more chances following a carry than Jack Grealish (15) in the Champions League. Indeed, in this same period, Grealish has averaged more chances created from open play per 90 than any other City player (2.5).
