CITY SPECIAL Fernandinho rolling back years at City
PEP Guardiola may be scouring the transfer market for Fernandinho’s successor – but the Brazilian has a new lease of life at the Etihad.
The City manager wants to prioritise a midfielder in the summer transfer window as he plans for the club’s future in the long term.
In the meantime, the Christmas fixtures have left him increasingly without cheer as fatigue and injury have caught up with his star players.
With the festive period bringing a flurry of tackles, excessive both in force and number to the Blues, their luck ran out at Selhurst Park and Gabriel Jesus could miss up to two months of football.
Having seen several players push through the pain barrier to retain their place in the team – not least Kevin De Bruyne’s recent starts against Bournemouth and Watford – the manager has an opportunity to rest some of his key men for their next league game at Liverpool a week on Sunday.
Upcoming games against Burnley in the FA Cup and Bristol City in the first leg of their league cup semifinal should allow squad players such as Yaya Toure, Bernardo Silva and Danilo, who all came off the bench on Tuesday night, to feature from the start.
Fernandinho, who has played all but 20 minutes of the four games over the past 11 days, is a prime candidate to be rested given his importance for the second half of the season.
Not only is he a must as a holding midfielder for every big game to come, his adaptability in slotting in anywhere in defence or midfield is also invaluable to help the team manage different situations.
Guardiola has kept Fernandinho out of the league cup completely so far, preserving him for the Premier League and Champions League. But if he is to take him out for the upcoming matches, it will be against the midfielder’s will. Given the opportunity to explain how much tiredness had impacted on his game, Fernandinho brushed it off as nothing. Declaring himself to be feeling years younger, the Brazilian is not keen on missing any action in City’s push for success on multiple fronts. “Yesterday I spent at home with my child and my wife and I was fresh tonight. “We are happy, we try to do our best and I think we did it. “We will see what happens [with the cup games]. “We have three or four days until the next game so we will see what Pep is going to do but for sure every player is going to be ready if he needs them to play. “We are here, we are professional – and I don’t like to rest. “To be honest, I feel like I am 25.”