It’s no surprise, given the quality and depth of the Man City squad, that they have the second-highest number of players at this World Cup -16, with Bayern Munich first on 17 (City had the most in 2018 – also 16, against 11 for Bayern)
How have they done so far? Well, Kevin de Bruyne(Belgium)and Ilkay Gundogan(Germany)both failed to make it past the group stage with countries that should have done much better…
KdeB cut a forlorn figure as part of a team he controversially said were ‘too old’ to win the World Cup…and Gundogan struggled in a side whose fall from grace since 2014 mirrors Manchester United…Pep will be the big winner when they return early to the Etihad rested and raring to go…
It seems that both players struggled with players around them who weren’t on their footballing wavelength…when you are part of such a highly drilled and polished club side as City, playing fantasy football, then the harsh reality of occasional international get-togethers comes home to roost…
Controversially, I wonder if the world’s very best club sides like City, PSG, Bayern and Real Madrid wouldn’t perform better in Qatar than even the best international teams…
There are compelling reasons to believe this…tactics, training, togetherness, and an intimate footballing knowledge of your fellow players…
City’s five England players have all had game time, but with only John Stones playing every minute of the three games so far – and very impressively…
Stones, Walker and maybe Foden with continue to start most of the time, but Grealish and Phillips still need to up their game or be content with bit parts…
The big question is will Phil Foden fulfil his enormous potential as the most technically gifted player of his generation or will this be yet another example of brilliant club form dissipating when his finely tuned club teammates are no longer all around him, just a select few…
Elsewhere, there have been very solid starts for Cancelo, Dias and Bernardo Silva with Portugal; Alvarez with Argentina(can there be a better backup striker in the Prem?); Akanji for Switzerland, and one of City’s most underrated players in Nathan Ake for The Netherlands…
Finally, the pairing of Rodri and Laporte as Spain’s first-choice centre-backs has been remarkable even though Rodri has been given licence to play further forward than Laporte and the two Spanish full-backs – a kind of back three, thus freeing him up to perform a very similar role to his defensive midfielder duties for City…
Nonetheless, Pep will take note of yet another possible permutation when the games start coming thick and fast in late December in this most crowded of seasons…
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