Manchester City will be hoping that history does not repeat itself when they take on Barcelona in the Champions League round of 16 tonight. The fixture is a repeat of the tie at the same stage of the competition last season, when the Catalan giants came out on top with a 4-1 victory on aggregate. Last season's first leg, like tonight's game, was played at The Etihad with Barca running out 2-0 winners thanks to goals from Lionel Messi and Dani Alvez. Still young in Champions League terms, City have shown they are finally acclimatising to the competition after coming through a very tricky group. The Citizens finished second in group E that included Bayern Munich, AS Roma and CSKA Moscow. Goals from Samir Nasri and Pablo Zabaleta sealed a memorable 2-0 win over in Rome in the last group game to secure Manuel Pellegrini's men a place in the last 16. They come up against a Barcelona side that will be hurting after a damaging weekend in La Liga. Luis Enrique's side had the chance to go top of the table for a period before their Classico rivals Real Madrid's game, but lost 1-0 at home to Malaga. This brought a staggering 11-game winning streak to an end. Barca have made it to the knockout stages of the Champions League for the 11th consecutive campaign. They have made it to at least to the quarter finals in the last seven seasons and will be confident of doing so again as City have only kept one clean sheet in 13 home Champions League games. Yaya Toure will serve his final game of suspension after being sent off against CSKA Moscow in the group stage while new signing Wilfried Bony will be looking to make his first start in blue after coming off the bench during Saturday's demolition of Newcastle United in the Premier League. For Barca, Luis Suarez is in line to play his first Champions League match since signing for the club last summer. Manager Enrique almost has a full squad of players to pick from but Thomas Vermaelen is still missing. An unerring side note for City fans: Lionel Messi has netted in each of his last five games. Hes never managed it six games running. We all know how much he loves to break records.
