Paul Scholes feels that Manchester City may have to make a similar tactical adjustment as his Manchester United did in the late 90s if they are to eventually win the Champions League.
Although they have qualified for the last 16 of this season's competition, Manuel Pellegrini's side look set for another second-place finish after two defeats to Juventus, greatly complicating another campaign. City have yet to even get into the quarterfinals of the world's most prestigious club competition.
Scholes recognises many of the same issues in City that his former side United had on a long learning curve between 1994 and 1999, when they finally won the Champions League after a half-decade of frustration, and said they are going through the same process.
The BT pundit believes the key alteration may be required up front, to prevent an openness that has repeatedly cost City.
"I think the biggest thing we did was we stopped playing two up front away from home," Scholes told ESPN FC, speaking from the BT green room, where he analysed this week's Champions League. "Away from home especially, and even in the big games at home, we went for one up front.
"I see similarities with what Pellegrini's doing at City. He's obsessed with two forwards. He keeps doing it and they keep getting beat. Well, they've done better this year.
"We were very much set in our ways, it was 4-4-2 or nothing and, until we changed that, we didn't start to do better.
"Big teams, they control the midfield, and we were playing two against four, two against five sometimes and it just ... we always struggled to handle it like anybody would. I think Man City are going through a similar process now."
A key example for City came last season, when they left themselves so open in the middle against Barcelona and lost 3-1 on aggregate. Scholes feels United would have won more Champions Leagues themselves between 2007 and 2011 had it not been for Barcelona, because they had by then perfected their tactical approach in Europe.
"When we won in 1999, we thought we had a right chance of winning four or five but it never really happened [regularly in Europe] until 2008. When we adjusted to play the one up front, and a lot more solid in the middle of the pitch, I think we managed, we had that little spell when we got to three out of four finals. We were a lot more cautious. We weren't as gung-ho as we had been.
"We were still playing two up front against teams, not the top teams. When we were playing against a proper team like Barcelona or Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, we knew we had to play five in midfield and gone for dear life and try and get through.
"We were disappointed we didn't win, but when you're playing a team like Barcelona. We came up against an unbelievable football team."