Manchester City are not going to be close to their best in the opening weeks of the season. Seven of their star players from last season have not played any part in the pre-season tour as a result of going all the way at the World Cup.
That is less than ideal for new coach Enzo Maresca as he looks to hit the ground running in the job. A two-week tour to Asia has presented some challenging conditions for training, and he has not been able to work with some of the players he will rely on most.
Early arrivals boost defensive options
Nevertheless, City have done what they can and part of that involved the call to fly some players out to join them in Hong Kong earlier than expected. Ruben Dias, Omar Marmoush and Matheus Nunes all reported for duty before the first of the three friendlies when they had originally been set to link up with the rest of the squad in Korea a few days later.
No doubt Dias added some seniority for the visit to major sponsor BYD in Shenzhen, but as the man who players expect to get the captaincy the more time he can spend with Maresca and sporting director Hugo Viana the better. Those relationships have to be as strong as possible to give City the best chance of succeeding.
The arrivals of Dias and Nunes also allowed extra time for Maresca to get to work with the defence that could see City through the opening weeks of the campaign. Marc Guehi and Nico O'Reilly will want to get involved when they return but for two of three friendlies so far Maresca has been able to call on six defenders who can make up his back five.
Strong back line for the start
Abdukodir Khusanov can compete with Nunes at right-back or play in the middle with Dias or Josko Gvardiol, who is also able to challenge Rayan Ait-Nouri for the left-back position. Behind them, Gianluigi Donnarumma has been involved in pre-season from the beginning (with a slight break while he got married before the tour) and Vitor Reis is likely to stay with the group after having the full summer with the Blues.
Reis came off the bench at right-back in the friendly win over K-League All Stars while Dias and Gvardiol started together in the middle and Nunes began to build his minutes up in the final half-hour.
While City's best attacking players will be short of match fitness, there is a good chance that Maresca will be able to field a strong defence for the opening weeks that can give the Blues a platform to build from. And with a week of recovery between each of the first four games of the season, if City can navigate their way through the start they will only get stronger as the matches begin to come sooner.
