The Warm-Up: Manchester by the sea – a tale of misery

As excuses for galling eliminations from cup competitions go, “we forgot to be there” is surely up there in the Champions League places. It has brevity on its side, for a start, plus – take note, Arsene – a note of gallows humour. For this at least, kudos goes to Pep Guardiola, who even managed to deliver it with a smile. A pretty solid effort under pressure.

More solid, certainly, than Manchester City’s defending at Stade Louis II on Wednesday night, which, before the interval at least, veered between “Chuckle Brothers” and “complete breakdown of societal norms leading to anarchy and primitive state of nature” on the club’s newly patented in-house haplessness scale. Any vague notion of keeping things tight went out the window inside ten minutes and the Citizens were unable to staunch the flow on a night that promised much but delivered only heartache.

Full credit to Monaco, who – to the untrained eye at least – have emerged as a joyously fully-formed entity over the last few months, all well-worn passing patterns and youthful synergy. It is grim testament to the work done by Leonardo Jardim that his squad is definitely, definitely going to be torn apart this summer. So it goes.

City, though. Deary me. Imagine going back in time, say three or four years, to a slightly earlier iteration of the City project and telling fans and club bosses that, in 2017, they’d be managed by Guardiola, have an embarrassment of riches in attack and yet be lining up in Champions League knockout games with a back four of Bacary Sagna, John Stones, Aleksandar Kolarov and Gael Clichy. They’d still be laughing now.

In time, there might be some small solace in having contributed to a breathless, throwback European tie. 6-6: now that’s an aggregate score worthy of the name. Shame the same cannot be said of City’s backline.

Their goalless draw at home to Bayer Leverkusen will not live too long in the memory, but that won’t trouble Diego Simeone and Atletico Madrid too much. Having won the first leg 4-2, Los Colchoneros were never in much danger of going out and can now celebrate reaching the quarter-finals for a fourth straight season.

With no domestic title chase to distract them and perennial Warm-Up favourite Fernando Torres due back from injury to terrorise* defenders any time now, they will be a force to reckon with in the last eight.

*Other verbs available, but be nice.

We learnt on Wednesday that Romelu Lukaku has turned down an offer of a new contact. Today, two updates:

(1) The striker has risked the ire of the Everton faithful by hinting that a lack of ambition on the club’s part is behind his reluctance to extend his stay. “Instead of living in the past, you have to think ahead,” he said. Miaow.

(2) According to the Daily Mirror, Chelsea are keeping an eye on the situation and are considering a £100million joint bid for Lukaku and Ross Barkley. That’s the same Chelsea who already bought Lukaku once, never played him, then loaned him out and sold him. A proper Romeo and Juliet tale in the making.

The Warm-Up was doing a little YouTube “research” for something else this week and stumbled upon what must rank among football’s great neglected songs. Yep, that’s Romário and Edmundo, rapping about how good they are at scoring goals.

Among the choice lines: “I play because I like it. I play for amor. Edmundo, amigo, I can be your professor.” Word.

The Warm-Up is still waiting on the results of the DNA test, but at this stage it would be a shock if the goalkeeper wasn’t at least 40% panther. Check out his outstanding triple save here:

Not content with losing a battle of wits with Jamie Vardy on Tuesday night, the Sevilla midfielder has decided to double down in the midweek ignominy stakes by dusting off some casual sexism.

“If he was a foreign player, you, the English press, would say he is a cheat,” said Nasri of Vardy. Yep, fair enough. But the subsequent suggestion that the Leicester forward should “play the game like a man”? Nope, sorry. Straight to the bin. Do not pass Go, do not collect £200.

Ed Malyon tells the story behind Fabio Quagliarella’s controversial decision to leave his beloved Napoli in 2011 – and it’s a doozy.

Will Manchester have a representative in the last eight of a continental competition this season? We’ll find out on Thursday night, when United welcome Rostov to Old Trafford. The spectacle should be a little better than the first game by virtue of the fact the teams will be playing on an actual football pitch rather than a car park painted green, and United look well placed to progress after securing a 1-1 draw in Russia.

Neutrals, though, would do well to tune into Roma vs Lyon. The first leg was a six-goal thriller and the return could easily go the same way, with the Italians needing to score at least twice.