Samir Nasri has labelled Dani Alves as Barcelona’s weak link ahead of Manchester City’s Champions League clash on Tuesday evening.
The Premier League champions host the La Liga giants at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday evening in the last-16 first-leg and they will be hoping to avoid a second consecutive elimination to the Catalans.
Nasri is feeling confident and believes that City should push the Barca defence and make the most of Alves’ attacking desire.
“I watched both Paris Saint-Germain versus Barcelona matches in the Champions League this season and I think there’s things we can do,” he told reporters.
“They still have great players, but Dani Alves is not the Dani Alves of four or five years ago. We can hurt their defence.
“I just hope we can keep a clean sheet in the first leg and then we will have a good chance to qualify. We conceded two goals at home last year, so it was too hard for us to go to the Nou Camp and qualify.”
Alves and Lionel Messi scored in both legs last season but Nasri feels City are now wiser and are ready for the test against Luis Enrique’s side.
He added: “Were we naive against Barca? Yes, we were. It’s still difficult to talk about. We were flying before the Barca matches, but then we had three or four starters who had injuries and it wasn’t the same.
“I just think last year was a little bit too much for the whole club. Manchester City had never played in the last 16 of the Champions League before, so it was too much pressure, too big a game.
“Against a team like Barca you cannot make the kind of mistakes we did. You have to play your game. We let them play and we didn’t play our own game.
“Usually we have possession of the ball but against Barca we didn’t, we just defended. We are not a team who knows how to just defend.”