City have mountain to climb

Cape Town - Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany admits his side face an uphill task to advance from the UEFA Champions League group stages.

This, after the English Premier League champions were held to a 1-1 draw by Roma on Matchday Two at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night.

Manuel Pellegrini's star-studded team have collected just one point from their opening two Group E encounters, having lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich a fortnight ago.

Next up for City is a double header against CSKA Moscow in the competition, but Kompany sees the return fixtures against Bayern and the Giallorossi as crucial to their hopes of progressing to the knockout phase.

"You are probably looking at the Roma return game and the Bayern game and we really hope that we can get the six points.

"It's imperative we win those games," the Belgium international said.

"Winning won't just open up the door for second place but first place as well. I don't think you can really aim for second place but if we get into contention to go to the next round we'll be very close to first place."

The Citizens finished joint-top with Bayern in their group last season to qualify for the round of 16, where they lost to Barcelona, although they will not match that 15-point tally this time around after struggling to get going in Europe.

Kompany added: "We got 15 points out of 18 last season. We've happened to fall into quite hard groups. This was tough - there is nothing more difficult or special than the Champions League."