City eye summit as Plzeň chase consolation prize

Having secured early qualification for the UEFA Champions League round of 16, Manchester City FC will now focus their attention on closing the three-point gap separating them from Group D leaders FC Bayern München when they host FC Viktoria Plzeň on matchday five.

• With a visit to Bayern still to come, City will look to take three points against Plzeň – and hope that the reigning champions slip up at PFC CSKA Moskva in the group's other game.

• While City have reached the knockout stage for the first time, Plzeň have yet to take a single point but retain hope of snatching third place from CSKA and, with it, a UEFA Europa League slot.

Match background
• Eliminated from the UEFA Champions League, Pavel Vrba's Plzeň arrive in Manchester three points adrift of third-placed CSKA. To keep alive their chances of leapfrogging the Russian side, who they host on matchday six, they must match in Manchester whatever result the Russian side earn against Bayern.

• This is Plzeň's first visit to England while City have lost just one of their last 22 UEFA competition fixtures in Manchester.

• City will enter the game buoyed by their 5-2 matchday four victory over CSKA – the first time they have scored five goals in a European Cup game.

• Plzeň, by contrast, are on a four-game losing streak in Group D – the worst run in their European history.

• Prior to this group stage campaign, Plzeň had actually gone seven games unbeaten on the road in Europe. They posted three straight wins in this season's UEFA Champions League qualifiers and had a memorable 3-0 victory at SSC Napoli in last term's UEFA Europa League round of 32.

• City will surpass their previous highest points haul in a UEFA Champions League group stage campaign – ten in 2011/12 – if they record a second victory over a Plzeň side they beat 3-0 in the Czech Republic in September.

Team ties
• When Manuel Pellegrini's Villarreal CF side won 2-1 at FK Mladá Boleslav in the 2007/08 UEFA Cup group stage, Václav Procházka was in the beaten home team.

• Costel Pantilimon and Marián Čišovský were team-mates for three seasons at Romanian club FC Timişoara between 2008 and 2011. They played together in the Timişoara side beaten 1-0 at home by City in the 2010/11 UEFA Europa League play-off first leg, lining up against Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany, Joleon Lescott, Yaya Touré and David Silva. In the 2009/10 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round, they helped Timişoara beat Fernandinho's FC Shakhtar Donetsk on away goals.

• Pavel Horváth, David Limberský and Daniel Kolář played in the AC Sparta Praha side beaten 5-0 on aggregate by an Arsenal FC team that included Gaël Clichy in the 2007/08 UEFA Champions League third qualifying round.

• Horváth played in England in SK Slavia Praha's 3-0 first-leg defeat at Leeds United AFC in the 1999/2000 UEFA Cup quarter-finals.

• Silva played in the Spain side that beat Kolář's Czech Republic 2-0 in a UEFA EURO 2012 qualifier in Prague in October 2011. Jesús Navas featured in Spain's 2-1 home win in March the same year but no Plzeň players were involved.

• Roman Hubník, František Rajtoral and Kolář played in the Czech Republic's 0-0 draw with James Milner's England in Arnhem in their opening group game at the 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Championship.

• Stevan Jovetič played for Montenegro in their UEFA EURO 2012 play-off defeat against a Czech Republic side featuring Kolář.

• Edin Džeko played in the Czech top flight in 2005/06 and 2006/07, scoring 16 times in 43 league appearances for FK Teplice. He played three games against Plzeň, losing two and drawing one – a 3-3 away draw in March 2006 in which he scored.

• Kompany helped RSC Anderlecht beat Slavia Praha home and away in the 2005/06 UEFA Champions League third round qualifying round.

• Limberský had a loan spell at Tottenham Hotspur FC between January and May 2005 but did not make a first-team appearance.

• Jack Rodwell scored twice against Tomáš Hořava's SK Sigma Olomouc to help Everton FC beat the Czech side 6-2 on aggregate in the 2009/10 UEFA Europa League play-offs.