Manchester City vs Dynamo Kiev: It is time to prove we are one of Europe’s best, says Joe Hart

This is City’s fifth season among the European elite and they have only beaten one of the game’s big beasts

Joe Hart will miss England’s friendlies against Germany and the Netherlands with a calf injury (AFP)

If you want to gauge Manuel Pellegrini’s impact on Manchester City, consider this. When he arrived, their reputation in the Champions League was one of massive under-achievement. The Abu Dhabi money had never bought them as much as a place in the last 16.

Unless there are miracles at the Nou Camp, where Arsenal will try to claw back a two-goal deficit, and at the Etihad Stadium, where Dynamo Kiev will attempt to overturn a 3-1 defeat on their own ground, Pellegrini will manage England’s last Champions League club standing. And who knows? In the frantic, bare-knuckle contest that is European knockout football, they may even win the European Cup.

“It’s going to be difficult because it’s a really difficult tournament,” said the City goalkeeper, Joe Hart. “But we have got to believe we can win it.

“You have got to do well in Europe if you want to be called a big club. We are fighting on a personal basis and a team basis. We have worked hard, we have been together a long time and we need to improve because it’s a short career and we have to take the opportunities we have at this club.”

Mostly, these have been opportunities spurned. This is City’s fifth season among the European elite and they have only beaten one of the game’s big beasts. That club is Bayern Munich, who have been overcome three times by City but always when the Germans had already qualified for the business end of the competition.

This season, however, Pellegrini has overseen two victories as good as anything seen in this season’s Champions League. Both were away from home and both were by the same scoreline – 3-1. You can take your pick whether the victory in Seville was better than the one in Kiev’s Olympic Stadium but they both showed the control and ability to take chances that has been absent from City’s recent displays in the Premier League, where they have not won back-to-back matches since October.

Hart showed his frustration when asked if the goalless draw at Norwich on Saturday meant the end of City’s title ambitions.

“I am never going to concede anything while it’s still up for grabs and the Premier League is still up for grabs,” he said. “If I knew why we hadn’t won back-to-back games, then obviously we would have had it sorted by now.

“We have had some tough results and not performed to the levels we wanted but there is still plenty to play for this season – and that is even more relevant with the Kiev game.”

Five teams have lost the first leg of a Champions League tie by a scoreline of 3-1 or worse and made it through. Crucially, however, all five played the second leg at home. Only one team in the history of the European Cup has done what Dynamo Kiev will attempt at the Etihad Stadium tonight – qualify after losing the first leg at home 3-1.

That team was Ajax, who in 1969 beat Benfica 3-1 at the Stadium of Light in the quarter-finals to force a replay in Paris that the Dutch champions won 3-0 in front of 63,000 fans. Ajax were then driven majestically forward by Johan Cruyff and, although Kiev possess Andriy Yarmolenko, he is not in the Cruyff class.

“This is something really exciting,” said Hart. “Going into a last-16 game with a good option of going through, doing something I haven’t done before and creating some history for this club. It is not necessarily about winning the trophy but it’s about taking the small steps.”