January signings Marc Guéhi and Antoine Semenyo are not yet registered, while Rodri is suspended after his red card against Bodo/Glimt.
Tijjani Reijnders drops to the bench, with Nathan Ake, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Jeremy Doku and Erling Haaland coming in.
City know a victory is likely required to stand any chance of finishing in the table’s top eight and skipping next month’s play-off round.
Matheus Nunes’ inclusion from the start sees him reach 100 games in a Manchester City, midway through his third campaign at the Etihad Stadium.
It’s the first ever meeting between City and Galatasaray and our first clash with a Turkish side since losing to Fenerbahce in 1968/69.
Teams
CITY XI: Donnarumma, Nunes, Khusanov, Ake, Ait-Nouri, Bernardo (C), O’Reilly, Marmoush, Cherki, Doku, Haaland
Subs: Trafford, Bettinelli, Reijnders, Nico, Foden, Gray, Mukasa, Alleyne, Lewis, Mfuni
GALATASARAY XI: Ugurcan, Sallai, Sanchez, Abdulkerim, Jakobs, Gundogan (C), Lemina, Sara, Sane, Yilmaz, Osimhen
Subs: Sen, Guvenc, Icardi, Akgun, Elmail, Kutucu, Ayhan, Torreira, Kahraman, Karasu, Kocak, Singo
Tactics
Gianluigi Donnarumma’s goal will likely be protected by a back four of Matheus Nunes, Abdukodir Khusanov, Nathan Ake and Rayan Ait-Nouri.
We’d expect Bernardo Silva and Nico O’Reilly to be in the engine room, with Omar Marmoush, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki all interchanging behind Erling Haaland.
Permutations
With the 36-team Champions League table so condensed, there’s little point in speculating exactly where we will finish.
What we do know is that we’ll play again in the Champions League this season after tonight.
A defeat guarantees that will be in the play-off round, while a draw makes that extremely likely.
Victory is what we really need to stand a genuine chance of finishing in the top eight and avoiding that play-off altogether.
With all 36 teams playing at the same time, we’ll make sense of the final table as soon as possible after full time.
| 5 |
|
Liverpool
Liverpool
|
8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 14 | 8 | 6 | 16 |
|
| 6 |
|
Manchester City
Man City
|
8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 14 | 9 | 5 | 16 |
|
| 7 |
|
Tottenham Hotspur
Spurs
|
8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 15 | 7 | 8 | 15 |
|
Returning heroes
The Etihad will welcome back to two favourites as part of Galatasaray’s travelling party, with Ilkay Gundogan and Leroy Sane both part of the Turkish giants’ squad.
Gundogan spoke beautifully yesterday about what this Club means to him.
“Of course, I’m still a fan of this football club, this team and this manager,” he said.
“I watch as many games of City’s as I can and even if we weren’t facing them in this competition, it wouldn’t change anything for me because there are so many people close to my heart here, and obviously I wish City nothing but the best.”
Pep returned the favour with a eulogy of his own.
“I am grateful to both of them. They made incredible contributions and they are lovely people,” he said on Tuesday.
“I am happy to see them back.”
Let’s give them a big Etihad welcome!
Approaching 400
Pep Guardiola has won 399 of his 568 games in charge of City so far.
So tonight could see him tick over to another fresh landmark, having been victorious in more than 70% of his games so far.
He’ll also break the record for managers in charge of English sides in terms of how quickly they reached the figure.
Arsene Wenger is the current fastest, hitting the figure in 696 games while Alex Ferguson took 732 matches.
So, a win today would see him get there 127 games before Wenger and 163 before Ferguson. Astounding.
Match stats
- This will be the first meeting between Manchester City and Galatasaray, as well as Pep Guardiola’s first ever game against the Turkish side.
- The last English team to beat Galatasaray in the UEFA Champions League was Arsenal in December 2014 (4-1) – since then, the Turkish side are unbeaten in three meetings with English opponents in the competition (W2 D1), including a win over Liverpool earlier this season in the most recent one (1-0 in September 2025).
- Manchester City’s only previous meetings against a Turkish side came 57 years ago in the 1968-69 European Cup, when we were eliminated by Fenerbahçe in the first round (lost 2-1 on aggregate – 0-0 at home, lost 2-1 away).
- We have lost two of our last three UEFA Champions League games (W1), having only lost three of our prior 24 league phase/group stage matches in the competition (W16 D5). We lost 2-0 to Bayer Leverkusen in our most recent home game but have never lost back-to-back group games at the Etihad Stadium in the competition.
- Since the start of last season only Viktoria Plzen (9) and Fenerbahçe (7) have drawn more games across the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League than Galatasaray (6) – they haven’t drawn back-to-back matches in the same Champions League campaign since drawing five straight in 2001-02, however.
- Galatasaray manager Okan Buruk won three of his five previous UEFA Champions League games against English opposition (D1 L1), including an away win with Galatasaray against Manchester United in October 2023 (3-2); he also led Istanbul Basaksehir to victory over the Red Devils in November 2020 and Gala to a 1-0 win over Liverpool in this season’s league phase.
- The average age of Manchester City’s starting lineups this season (25y 140d) is our youngest in a single UEFA Champions League campaign; we have handed starts to seven different players aged 22 or younger in 2025-26, the most in a single campaign (Savinho, Nico’ O’Reilly, Rico Lewis, Oscar Bobb, Rayan Cherki, Max Alleyne and Abdukodir Khusanov).
- Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has scored 35 goals in just 27 home appearances in the UEFA Champions League, netting 21 in 18 at the Etihad Stadium. Only Sergio Aguero has netted more times in the competition at the venue (23).
