Alan Smith revealed whether he thinks Manchester City will win the Champions League once again this season, while also chiming in on Arsenal’s prospects this year.
Carlton Cole backed City to win Europe’s elite competition once again just because they have Erling Haaland in their ranks.
One awaits to see whether Pep Guardiola’s men will win the Champions League this season, considering they have all the tools to do so once again.
Of course, Nottingham Forest is the only English club to have won successive European Cup finals in 1979 and 1980.
However, as far as the rebranded Champions League goes, which started in 1992, no side apart from Real Madrid have won it in back-to-back campaigns.
Alan Smith reveals whether he thinks Manchester City will win the Champions League this season
In the last eight of the Champions League so far, there are plenty of heavy-hitters like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG, Arsenal and Barcelona while either one of Inter Milan or Atletico Madrid as well as Borussia Dortmund or PSV Eindhoven could join the Sky Blues.
However, when assessing the competition, one would back City to beat all the aforementioned teams, especially over two legs.
Being a former Arsenal player, while Alan Smith seems to side with them as the club he would love to see the Champions League, he is backing Manchester City to go the distance once again.
“I’d like to say Arsenal, but if not, Manchester City, they’re the best team in the world at the moment, it would probably be them”, he told GOAL [via TikTok].
Manchester City will not find it easy
While one can understand why Alan Smith is backing Manchester City to win the Champions League, it is fair to say that several tough teams will be standing in their way.
Out of the qualified teams, Real Madrid pose a threat mainly due to their pedigree in the competition, Bayern and PSG have quality across the board while Arsenal are one of the most in-form teams in the world.
As a result, it would be naïve to expect City to find it easy to dominate Europe, even if they are perhaps the most balanced side out of all in every respect.
