What Will Stop Manchester City? Its Weakness At Fullback

It’s come to be expected that the predicted lineups for Manchester City’s team are often inaccurate.

If we know anything about Pep Guardiola, it’s that a player’s widely accepted specialist position offers no guide to what area of the field they might appear.

That said, before its match against Southampton the vast majority of outlets covering the game misinterpreted the positions of the Citizens’ back four substantially.

Nathan Ake, who has regularly filled in at left back, was believed to be the one shunted out to fullback with Joa Cancelo taking up the role on the right.

However, when the game began it soon became clear that it was new signing Manuel Akanji occupying the right-back birth, with Cancelo on the opposite side.

As is often the case with Guardiola’s unorthodox tactical deployments, the decision worked a treat.

From the first whistle, Cancelo terrorized Southampton’s right flank, it was he who skipped past a challenge to rifle in the game’s opening goal and, with 30 minutes to spare, squared the ball to Erling Haaland to complete a 4-0 rout.

With City in such imperious form, it seems silly to bring up a potential weakness, but it’s clear fullback that is starting to emerge as a problem area.

Injury woes

Kyle Walker’s exit from the Manchester Derby due to injury barely got a mention in the post-game dispatches.

But as news began to emerge that the City’s right back had suffered a significant enough blow to require surgery attention was drawn.

Sharing a photo from a hospital bed, the Sheffield-born defender was philosophical about his impending race to be fit for the World Cup; “As players, we have to appreciate injuries are part and parcel of the game we love,” he wrote, “my operation on Tuesday was a success and now I can concentrate on my rehab and getting back to full fitness.”

Walker’s injury came just days after his City and England colleague John Stones limped off with a problem in England’s 3-3 draw with Germany.

The Yorkshireman had been filling in for Walker, who has struggled this season for fitness, and removed yet another option at fullback from the squad.

Guardiola’s solution against Southampton was to field Akanji there.

But, given the exhausting schedule leading up to this season’s winter World Cup break, it seems unlikely the only fit senior fullback Joa Cancelo can play every game.

This leaves City with the risky prospect of blooding youngsters Rico Lewis and Sergio Gomez at a critical moment.

Gomez was the man Guardiola turned to against Manchester United and it would be fair to say he had a mixed afternoon.

Although he provided a good outlet offensively and provided an assist for Erling Haaland, at the back his defending was erratic.

Fortunately for City, the game was pretty much won, but the vulnerability in his area of the field was significant enough to encourage the manager to switch center-back Nathan Ake to fullback in the second half.

Lewis, who is only seventeen, is harder to assess given he has had fewer minutes than Gomez, but the Catalan has indicated he will be called upon.

“With the problems we have, Kyle will be out for a while and we don’t have many options at left-back or right-back. Rico showed me again that we can rely on him perfectly,” said the coach.

A small squad?

The narrative around Manchester City has focussed for so long on the money the club has spent on players that issues around squad depth are frequently overlooked.

Media outlets are often keener to calculate the total transfer fees of all the players sat on the Citizens bench more than examining holes in the squad.

In the summer, the club lost its captain Fernandinho along with experienced players; Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksander Zinchenko.

Of those four, two were replaced and only one of those by an established star in Erling Haaland. The club ultimately decided that, rather than sign Marc Cucarella, it would go for the emerging talent of Gomez.

It means that this season, unlike previous campaigns, Manchester City’s starting XI will be supplemented by its best youth prospects.

Whereas in the past it was an experienced campaigner like Fabian Delph or Zinchenko filling in at left-back, now it is Gomez.

Instead of having Danilo or Cancelo being the supporting act to Kyle Walker, Lewis will have to step up or have a center-half like Akanji fill in.

But this, according to Guardiola, is what he wants.

“I’m very very pleased with the team – not [big] in terms of numbers but there is incredible versatility and they all have huge quality – even the young academy lads,” the Catalan said earlier this season.

“The quality is there, they just have to push each other to the next step this season.”

The question is whether teams can test these potential weak points to a greater extent than Southampton did with Akanji.