Wayne Bridge claims one side has 'slight advantage' in Champions League showdown between Chelsea and Manchester City

Wayne Bridge has suggested that Chelsea could hold a slight psychological advantage over Manchester City going into Saturday’s Champions League final because they have beaten Pep Guardiola's men twice in recent weeks.

Thomas Tuchel’s side scuppered City’s hopes of completing a historic quadruple by dumping them out of the FA Cup semi-final in April, and followed that result up with a win in the Premier League earlier this month.

But while Bridge believes that the German will be desperate to avoid a repeat of his side’s FA Cup final defeat to Leicester City a fortnight ago – and his own Champions League final loss as PSG boss last year – he has also argued that he won’t come under a great deal of pressure if he fails to do so.

Speaking to BettingExpert, he said: “No matter the result, Tuchel has done a good job. If he stays on he’s going to have to start winning trophies but I don’t think there’s loads of pressure in terms of what he has achieved so far in terms of where Chelsea were.

"There’s always pressure in big games, you don’t want to lose and Tuchel will put that pressure on himself to win.

“He won’t want to lose a Champions League final again and he’ll remember what that feeling is like. He’s at a different team and it will play out tactically to last year. It’s about whether he’s learned from what he does around the game in terms of getting his players ready mentally and putting on the right training, on that aspect maybe he can learn to get those players ready for the occasion but tactically it will be different.

“Chelsea would have wanted to end the season with better form and they were very lucky to secure fourth in the league on the final day.

"This final is a one-off game and I’m sure Tuchel will have the players ready and different players could be playing in this final than the ones from the last few games, a couple will have been wrapped in cotton wool to make sure they’re ready. They’ll be up for this because they don’t want to suffer another final defeat and we’ll see a different Chelsea to what we saw the last few games at the end of the season.”

Bridge added: “Chelsea might have a slight advantage because they know they can go and beat City. If they hadn’t have beaten them then they won’t be as positive as they might be now. Chelsea know that they can beat them.

"They’re two great teams and Pep won’t let the recent matches affect him, but it could be at the back of his mind. Tuchel and Chelsea will definitely take a lot from beating them and it can work for them, but they won’t be comfortably expecting to win. They know they can beat City and they can do it again.

“I think it’s going to be a tight game. Often City can go and storm a match but the way that Chelsea have played against them means it will be a tough match. Chelsea have got results against City so it could go either way.”