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Club World Cup Bound: Man City’s Squad Develops Alongside Surprise Mahrez Talk
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola will be taking a big squad to the United States for the Club World Cup
Fans of his pasta and his wand of a left foot will be devastated to hear that Riyad Mahrez will not be playing for Manchester City in the Club World Cup. The Algerian has been fancifully linked with a spectacular return as part of one of a number of top talents from the Saudi Pro League looking to take part in the high-profile FIFA tournament this summer, but a comeback won’t be happening.
Such rumours add to the context of the new revamped tournament, which has had a feel that anything could happen ever since FIFA president Gianni Infantino headed to Miami to invite Lionel Messi’s team for no good reason and then unveiled the trophy that requires a giant gold key to open it in front of US President Donald Trump.
If those things can be true, then maybe the ball will be made of cheese and all the Saudi Pro League stars will be raffled off to the competing teams in some weird marketing event for the 2034 World Cup. Hopefully not.
It’s true though that nobody knows quite what to expect, or quite how serious each team should go at it. The prize for winning is huge financially, although the further City go the harder winning the Premier League crown back from Liverpool will be for Pep Guardiola.
City’s manager has suggested at various points that he will allow his players plenty of downtime and that he will take youngsters to fill out his squad in an effort to ensure his stars are not too exhausted. If that sounds like it will be a bunch of unknowns playing though, recent matchday squads tell a different story.
Even accounting for injuries to John Stones, Nathan Ake, Oscar Bobb, Rodri and Erling Haaland, there has still been no room in the 20 selected by Guardiola for Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov or Claudio Echeverri. Those eight instantly beef up the squad to numbers more like you’d see on a pre-season tour, before you turn to the academy for a few opportunities.
Then there’s the transfer window designed especially for this tournament, allowing players to move before it starts for a limited time. City may lose Kevin De Bruyne in that, but could strike deals for Florian Wirtz or Morgan Gibbs-White (or both if they really wanted to make a statement), and signings in other areas are also possible.
That gives Guardiola a much bigger squad than he is used to working with, enabling him to make sure his stars aren’t overworked in the opening weeks without jeopardising City’s chances of success in the competition.
There may be no room for Mahrez, but there will still be a host of familiar names when the Blues head to the US this summer.
Manchestereveningnews.co.uk
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