Samir Nasri

Manchester City recently made it into the knockout stages of the Champions League for the first time in their history, but they are undoubtedly one of the strongest teams at this stage of the competition.

Even though they finished only second in the group stages to Bayern Munich, they improved dramatically as the competition progressed. They even managed to beat Bayern Munich on their home soil in the final group match. Due to their impressive run, every team will be fearing the worst when it comes to facing City in the knockout stages according to midfielder Samir Nasri.

City have been drawn against Barcelona in what would be one of the standout ties of this round. Barcelona come in to the match with a lot of pedigree whereas this will be the first match of the knockout stages for City. Despite this Nasri feels that even the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona will think twice about facing City, who have been scoring goals for fun in the league this season. They have especially when strong at the Etihad stadium, although Manuel Pellegrini's men have struggled away from home.

City are trailing leaders Arsenal by three points, but they have been far more exciting to watch. They are close to beating Chelsea's record of 103 goals in a single campaign.

“We’re really confident. But we always seem to perform well against one of the big teams. We did it against Manchester United, Tottenham, against Bayern in midweek and now we’ve done it against Arsenal. Now we have to do it away from home, because we’ve struggled from the start of the season to perform as well away as we do at home. When we play a big game it is easy to get the motivation. Big players always respond when it’s a big game," said Nasri.