Rio Ferdinand claims only two sides can beat Man City to Champions League glory

Rio Ferdinand believes that only two sides can stop Manchester City from winning their first Champions League crown.

City eased into the quarter-finals on Tuesday night with a 7-0 thrashing of RB Leipzig at the Etihad, winning the tie 8-1 on aggregate.

Erling Haaland scored five goals as Pep Guardiola’s men took a step forward in their bid to finally win Europe’s biggest trophy.

The Premier League side will learn their last eight opponents on Friday with Chelsea, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Benfica and Inter Milan currently in the draw.

That group will be joined by Real Madrid or Liverpool and Napoli or Frankfurt following the conclusion of the Round of 16 on Wednesday night.

And Ferdinand believes only two of them will be a cause for any real concern.

‘They [City] will be thinking, “stay away from Bayern, stay away from Napoli. Everybody else is game”,’ the former defender told BT Sport.

‘They are that good a team. They have experience at this level now and they’ve got the players that can hurt any team on the planet.’

Fellow pundit Owen Hargreaves concurred, describing current Serie A leaders Napoli as the most ‘underrated’ side in the draw.

The Partenopei are 18 points clear of Inter at the top of the Italian top-flight after 26 games, and carry a 2-0 advantage heading into the home tie of their own last-16 clash with Eintracht Frankfurt.

‘If they [City] play like that they don’t need to worry about anybody else,’ added former United midfielder Hargreaves. ‘They don’t need to worry about Benfica or AC Milan or Inter.

‘The most underrated side I would say is Napoli. When they get it right they’re a threat. They’d give City a game.

‘They’re one of the best teams in Europe this season, one of the top scorers, they play beautiful football.

‘If you’re not putting any respect on the name then you need to go and watch them because they’re the real deal. Seriously, they could win the Champions League.’