Borussia Monchengladbach suffered another Bundesliga set-back when they drew 0-0 at home with Eintract Frankfurt on Friday night.
Andre Schubert’s side are now sitting in 12th place with 12 points from nine matches following a run of four games without a win.
Amid that run of course Gladbach did beat Celtic 2-0 at Celtic Park with confidence high for Tuesday’s return fixture at Borrusia Park stadium on Tuesday night.
If Gladbach beat Celtic and Manchester City fail to beat Barcelona then Pep Guardiola’s side will have to avoid defeat in Germany on matchday five if they are to reach the knock out phase.
After the draw with Eintracht Schubert told his club website: “We have a very good defensive structure to our game, and have kept clean sheets in our last five games. That is a positive, but we’re lacking a bit of creativity going forward.
“We’re missing a few key players, and we’re playing every three days at the moment. You could see that we were making lots of little mistakes, technical mistakes, which we wouldn’t normally make, like in our movement and control of the ball. It meant that we never really got into a good flow.
“Our opponents didn’t have any chances at all, and we had the one, and apart from that it was a very scrappy game. Both teams battled hard. Had we created one or two more chances, I’d have said we deserved to win the game. As it was, we’d have been lucky to get the win, so you have to say that a draw is a fair result.
Gladback are hopeful of having Rafael and Thorgan Hazard available after the both missed the win over Celtic due to injury.
Elsewhere in Group C Manchester City won 4-0 away to West Brom with Barcelona enjoying a 1-0 home win over Granada.
