Porto 0-0 Man City: Pep Guardiola’s side held to a draw in Porto but end up as group winners

Pep Guardiola has spent the past few days telling his Manchester City squad to forget about the notion of Premier League rotation now they are match sharp.

So with Champions League qualification already sealed, Tuesday night effectively acted as a trial for tasks to come. 

Seven of them had watched on as City slapped five past Burnley and the challenge was to force a way into the team for Fulham. Or more pertinently, the one heading for Old Trafford in just over a week’s time.

Pep Guardiola’s Man City side were held to a 0-0 draw by FC Porto in the Champions League

Substitute Gabriel Jesus had a late goal ruled out by VAR in the closing moments of the match

Ultimately they carved enough chances to maintain their 100 per cent record but those all arrived rather late on a fairly dry night. 

It will certainly be interesting to see how many have enhanced their chances following Guardiola’s first goalless draw in Europe since 2015. Despite all that, the City boss appeared happy enough.

‘They showed me today that everybody s fit, everybody is ready,’ he said with bite. 

‘So I can trust these players who played today and Burnley. They have competition between them now. That is good news.’

City dominated proceedings in Portugal but could not find a way through on Tuesday night

Raheem Sterling had an effort cleared off the line in a rare first-half opening in Portugal 

Not until the introduction of Gabriel Jesus from the bench did City have real predatory instinct and movement, the Brazilian believing he had scored a winner with 10 minutes remaining, heading Bernardo Silva’s cross against the bar and following up, only for VAR to intervene. Rodri was offside in the build-up.

Regardless, this result in isolation confirms top spot and probably a favourable last-16 draw. 

‘The group stage was tricky because of the situation this year. It was risky,’ Guardiola said. 

‘Some really important teams are finding it difficult to qualify, but we played in a high, high level. We controlled all of the away games. Today we didn’t concede a shot on target or corner.’

The first shot of any kind came with eight minutes of the first half remaining, when Raheem Sterling’s quick shimmy inside ended in Zaidu Sanusi hacking off the line. 

Before then, City had only appeared genuinely menacing when countering from their own third – proof why opposing teams rarely bother committing bodies forward with any regularity.

Porto did the once and were picked off. Ederson diverted away a header from a long throw and within seconds, Ferran Torres was up the other end being thwarted when clean through. The youngster was adjudged offside anyway.

Phil Foden was the main source of inventiveness off the left. 

Guardiola has not picked the 20-year-old for any of the last five Premier League matches but his industrious performances in Europe are indicating that he perhaps deserves more of a run back home.

Phil Foden (left) was the main source of inventiveness on the left side of Guardiola’s attack

One of his terrific threaded balls ought to have yielded the opener. Sterling was the beneficiary, bouncing off the challenge of Sarr as he wriggled inside, but Porto goalkeeper Agustin Marchesin marched out to smother.

The tie actually stood still at one point. Porto hoofed a clearance up to halfway, lined up into a back five and then stood and admired as it descended from the sky, at complete odds with the frantic waving of their manager, Sergio Conceicao. 

Guardiola had no intention of becoming embroiled in the sort of histrionics that illuminated the first meeting at the Etihad Stadium earlier in the season. As such, Conceicao was left to dance the touchline tango alone.

City really should have forced a winner. Sterling hooked across goal, Ruben Dias could not connect properly to tap into an empty net and Marchesin then superbly stopped a Torres overhead kick to keep this all square. 

Marchesin also dove well to stop Silva and excellently twisted to tip Eric Garcia’s effort wide before VAR noticed Rodri’s toenail.

City found Porto goalkeeper Marchesin (left) in excellent form at the Estadio do Dragao

Jesus scored after his header hit the bar late on but Rodri was deemed offside in the build-up

See below for Sportsmail’s SAM BLITZ on the live-blog of Manchester City’s draw in Porto plus updates from the rest of the 8pm Champions League action.