Why Pep Guardiola picks such strong teams for cup games against lower league opposition
Manchester City
By Sam Lee Jan 8, 2022 33
There’s a good example from August 2019 that helps to explain how and why Pep Guardiola picks his Manchester City teams.
It was in that period when there was a serious clamour for Phil Foden to be playing more minutes and City were 3-0 at home up against Brighton.
Bernardo Silva came on instead and Guardiola’s logic was instantly questioned. If Foden couldn’t get on when the game was safe, when could he ever?
And yet Guardiola had very good reasons. Bernardo had been named City’s player of the year a few months earlier but didn’t start their first game of the season, and he didn’t start their fourth, against Brighton, either.
Guardiola knows the battle he has on his hands to keep 16 or 17 senior internationals happy when only 11 of them can start, and he didn’t want Bernardo to feel unloved. The Portuguese may have even felt affronted to see a 19-year-old come on in his place.
It’s a delicate environment, a dressing room, and it’s part of the reason that Guardiola always picks strong teams for cup assignments against lower league teams, as he did against Swindon on Friday evening.
The City manager has to keep the players happy and Txiki Begiristain, the sporting director, has to keep their agents happy. With no Carabao Cup semi-final this January, after four consecutive years of them, Begiristain was explaining to some players’ representatives last autumn that they would have to be more patient than usual.
Of course, the simple reason why City’s starting line-ups are so strong is that the squad is so strong. If Raheem Sterling, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish need a rest, Guardiola could pick a front three of Riyad Mahrez, Gabriel Jesus and Bernardo. They haven’t even got a striker.
And nights like Friday are the knock-on effect. Those who aren’t playing in the Premier League games won’t be happy and they’d be even less happy if they’re not playing in the cups, even if — no, especially if — it’s a game against a lower league side.
Remember when they picked this team against Burton at the Etihad Stadium three years ago?
Still, it was jarring for fans and rivals alike to see such a strong team against Swindon. City are in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak, after all, affecting seven players and 14 staff.
Most if not all of the players should be back for the Chelsea game next weekend but had this happened last month, when there were more games, things would have been tougher. In the event, the squad is strong enough to cope for a game against League Two Swindon. The strain, such as it is, was evident in the presence of seven teenagers among the nine substitutes.
Many of them are extremely promising and would have hoped to play more.
James McAtee’s new contract may even depend on nights like Friday. The 18-year-old attacking midfielder from Salford has bags of potential and has already made his Premier League debut, but his contract expires in 18 months and at least half of the teams in the top two divisions in England, and top teams in Spain and the Netherlands, would love to sign him permanently.
He would have been disappointed not to play against RB Leipzig in December, the Champions League dead rubber when Guardiola fielded another strong line-up, but playing just shy of 30 minutes at the County Ground will be the kind of glimpse into the future that he has been dreaming of.
And then there’s Nathan Ake, like that Bernardo-Brighton scenario. The Dutchman had a difficult first season at City, hampered by a long-term injury, and is only getting into some kind of groove now, with appearances at Brentford and Arsenal. Swindon was exactly the type of game that he would have been hoping, possibly expecting to play.
It’s not easy to keep everybody happy but in the end, Friday night went pretty much perfectly, for both the first team and the academy.
Romeo Lavia, the holding midfielder who turned 18 on Thursday, made his second senior appearance, as did Luke Mbete, the 18-year-old centre-back.
Kayky, an 18-year-old winger who City signed from Fluminense (as one of the City Football Group’s “emerging talents”), made his debut. Cole Palmer, 19, from Wythenshawe, started and got a goal and an assist.
And of course the first team balance was restored. The dynamic in the dressing room was upheld and, just as importantly, fitness levels were topped up.
Few could get their head around Guardiola’s selection in Leipzig but there were senior players who had already had a rest and therefore needed minutes to regain their match rhythm, as well as eight or nine players who either hadn’t played too much football this season and/or were coming back from injury.
And as hard as it is to understand from the outside, that was the case on Friday night, too. After a gruelling December, City have a pretty forgiving January: they’ve only got two games left this month.
But that could be too much rest for Guardiola’s players. Bernardo, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo and Rodri have played so much football already this season but had they been given a rest against Swindon they would be going into next weekend’s Chelsea match with no match day minutes for a fortnight. Longer for Ilkay Gundogan and Kyle Walker, who didn’t start against Arsenal last weekend.
It’s all about load management, where rest days are needed to balance out the high-intensity match days, but those high-intensity match days are needed to help players stay on an even keel. With six days between trips to Arsenal and Swindon and eight days before Chelsea’s visit, that’s enough rest for the big names.
You could bet your bottom dollar that Guardiola would have wanted a Carabao Cup semi this week, against Liverpool or Leyton Orient, to keep his players sharp, to keep the rotation options happy and to try to win another trophy.
Swindon are the latest team to find out.
