For many City fans, Sunday’s scenes of Sergio Aguero holding the World Cup aloft alongside his best mate, Lionel Messi, were even better than Julian Alvarez winning a much-deserved winner’s medal…
However, take nothing away from Alvarez…he had a magnificent tournament, the highlight of which was his two goals and an assist in the 3-0 semi-final win over Croatia…after starting on the bench in the Group stages, he ended up as the first-choice, fellow striker to Messi…
He joins former City World Cup winners: Jerome Boateng, Jesus Navas, David Silva and Benjamin Mendy, and now the challenge is for Pep to devise a plan to maybe occasionally play him alongside Erling Haaland rather as an alternative.
Meanwhile, Manchester City’s huge, sixteen-man World Cup contingent continues to arrive back in dribs and drabs as another Clash of the Titans with Liverpool looms large at the Etihad this Thursday night in the Carabao Cup…
This is followed swiftly by the continuation of the daunting Prem programme starting with Leeds the following Wednesday as they try to close the five-point gap on Arsenal…and then a game in one of the competitions twice a week for the rest of the season…
Only four senior players – Haaland and Mahrez(both not in Qatar)and De Bruyne and Gundogan (both eliminated at the Group stage)- started Saturday’s hastily arranged friendly with Girona in which the newly-driven KdeB quickly threw off his World Cup traumas, scoring one and making a second for Haaland, inevitably…
They are now of course available to start against Liverpool, joined probably by Rodri, Laporte and Akanji (all eliminated in the last 16)…given he didn’t play in Brazil’s last-eight elimination, Ederson should also be available but Ortega is likely to get the Carabao nod anyway…
However, the jury is out on Ake and the eight Portuguese and English players who also made the quarter-finals – Cancelo, Dias, Silva, Walker, Stones, Foden, Phillips and Grealish(although these last two may benefit from limited playing time in Qatar)…who faces Liverpool will come down to careful physical and psychological assessments on a one by one basis…
It’s a sorry situation for such a top match to be decided according to Pep, sarcastically, by ‘the big brains in football’ – and he has every reason to feel aggrieved…he’s been handicapped by the massive success of most of his squad in being selected for Qatar…why schedule any game four days after a World Cup Final?
Nobody knows how this soccer semi-colon a third of the way into the season and halfway across the world will affect players generally, but City will be tested the hardest, one way or another…
Cynics will say that Pep’s extraordinarily strong squad has been built to withstand such tremors but player welfare is the biggest issue here, not resources…
The unique pressures of this strange season mean that the winners of the four major competitions in which City are still involved will overcome more hurdles than ever before…and City will be determined to win all four…and even two or three will be a great triumph.