Champions League draw 2019: What Man City can expect from Atalanta, Shakhtar and Dinamo Zagreb

Group C looks on paper like a favourable draw for the Premier League champions

Manchester City secured a near-perfect Champions League draw with their most difficult challenge likely not to be opponents Atalanta, Dinamo Zagreb or even the tricky Shakhtar Donestk but the lengthy travel that comes with their soft Group C line-up.

Journeys to Italy, Croatia and particularly Ukraine might push Pep Guardiola to rotate his side as he juggles European ambition with another Premier League title defence, but even then City should progress, comfortably so.

Atalanta are playing in their first Champions League, hence their spot in pot four, and will make interesting opponents. They finished third in Serie A last season and under Gian Piero Gasperino they have built a young, exciting team who are one of the best to watch in Italy, scoring more league goals than any other side including the champions, Juventus, with 77.

Gasperino prefers a 3-4-3 system with attacking wing-backs, and like Guardiola his team aims to dominate the ball. Their front-foot style could create an entertaining meeting with City and history suggests it is often the best approach against Guardiola’s teams; when City were knocked out of the Champions League by Liverpool 18 months ago and by Tottenham last season, it was a goal-fest on both occasions. Yet in a who-scores-more game City will be favourites, especially if they can find a way to keep the Colombian striker Duvan Zapata quiet.

Dinamo Zagreb might be the weakest side of the four, despite coming out of pot three. They do have the talented 21-year-old midfielder Dani Olmo, whose 12 goals and eight assists helped them to their highets points tally for 12 years as they sewed up the Croatian title with weeks to spare last season, but facing City’s raft of world-class talent will surely be a gear too far from beating the likes of Slaven Belupo each week, stadium capacity 3,205.

So perhaps it is Shakhtar who pose the biggest threat to City’s tranquil passage through the group stage. They Ukranian champions remain peppered with Brazilians, with genuine goalscoring threat in the pace of striker Junior Moraes and genuine quality in the left-back Ismaily, and they will be something of an unknown quantity under their new Portuguese manager Luis Castro.

Donetsk always makes for a difficult away trip, but City thrashed Shakhtar 6-0 and 3-0 last season and there is no reason to suspect a different outcome. The battle for second is likely to be where the real action of Group C lies.