A mid-season World Cup will force Pep into a major rethink

WITH the 2022 World Cup in Qatar just months away, Pep Guardiola and City will have to start their preparations now – even if it means abandoning one of the manager’s key principles.

Throughout his tenure at the Etihad Stadium, Guardiola has tended to keep a very tight squad.

Despite fans and pundits alike praising City’s incredible strength in depth, injuries in certain areas of the team do leave the options limited and often players are played out of position.

It has happened at left-back for years, but consistent injuries picked up in central defence towards the end of the season forced the likes of Fernandinho and Rodri to play emergency roles in some of City’s key games – against West Ham and Aston Villa, in particular, we saw how the former struggled to cope with those demands.

The Blues are expected to compete on all four fronts again this season and will likely go very deep into every competition – that means a lot of games in a very short space of time. But this season has thrown in the added complication of the World Cup, where the season will pause on November 13 and resume on Boxing Day.

All of this means more fixtures will have to be squeezed into a smaller window, placing incredibly tough demands on the players. With the vast majority of City’s stars also jetting off to the

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Cup, Guardiola and his backroom staff may need to do something they have never done before and go against the manager’s usual strategy.

The Blues recently completed the £51m signing of Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund and have been linked with a few more additions before the window closes. Leeds United’s Kalvin Phillips and Brighton’s Marc Cucurella have been among the names, but some of the signings are merely plugging holes left from previous departures.

It’s widely known Haaland is Sergio Aguero’s longterm replacement, but Phillips – if a move came to fruition – would only take Fernandinho’s space in the squad. Last season, out of the 17 nonhomegrown players allowed in a Premier League squad, City only named 13, with six homegrown players supplemented by youth talents. With various rumoured departures, combined with the incomings, that number is expected to remain around the same – but the Blues could pay the price. Game after game, week after week, players are going to become fatigued and rotation will be important this season maybe more than ever. Adding to that, after two weeks of Nations League action, players now have only three-and-a-half weeks to rest and recharge before pre-season.

Guardiola and the club must know the dangers keeping such a small squad can bring to the upcoming season, which is why keeping hold of some potentially unhappy players, as well as bringing a few in, may be vital in ensuring City continue their dominance of the Premier League.

Game after game, week after week, players are going to become fatigued Harry Siddall