Aymeric Laporte crashed out of the World Cup with Spain on December 6 and was given a rest before Manchester City’s domestic season resumed, but the 27-year-old was already back in time for the Sky Blues’ EFL Cup clash with Liverpool and is expected to start against Leeds United on Wednesday.
Sam Lee of The Athletic wrote: “Several City players did come back sooner than they needed to, including Aymeric Laporte.” The Spanish international was a regular before the World Cup began, starting in three of City’s last four Premier League games, so it’s little wonder he returned early. He only sat out of the one league outing as he’d played in the Champions League days before.
With Nathan Ake for competition in the left-sided centre-back role, let alone Guardiola having Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias and John Stones at his disposal, Laporte needed to make a decision to keep his starting place.
The 28-year-old has made nine appearances across the board this season, amassing 724 minutes of football. He spent the first two months of the campaign recovering from surgery and took little time to get his starting place back. Laporte clearly has a great mentality to want to earn his spot on merit.
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