City's Midfield Headache

Could Man City have a headache in midfield?

Written By Noah Solovey

As Ilkay Gundogan has been rumored to rejoin Manchester City from Barcelona, a midfield ‘headache’ is prone to occur for the PL Champions. If Gundogan completes his return, Pep Guardiola will face an overwhelming number of midfield options for a normal XI, which is guaranteed to annoy multiple starters who are not getting their promised position in the team’s efforts.

We saw this ‘headache’ concept take place in the 23/24 season with Jack Grealish losing his spot in the XI due to exciting new transfer Jeremy Doku. Grealish was later to pick up an injury, but names such as Mateo Kovacic and Matheus Nunes were stripped of deserved minutes due to youngsters such as Oscar Bobb and Micah Hamilton getting their chance.

Now, with Savinho and Gundogan coming in, Guardiola will be forced to lower minutes for a few players. When a fan creates the most normal City XI, Ederson, Walker, Dias, Akanji, Gvardiol, Rodri, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Foden, and Haaland are always featured. If you put this into a 4-1-4-1 formation, you see that the RM/W is missing. This is the position where, Doku, Savinho, Grealish, and Bobb (currently injured) are all fighting for. If you add Gundogan into this XI, it might be easiest to throw Foden on RM/W and play Bernardo in LM/W while putting Gundogan in CM. Or, does Gundogan need to start?

You could also look at the formation as a defensive 4-3-3 with Rodri as a DM. Then De Bruyne will fill up a midfielder slot and upfront your options are Doku, Savinho, Grealish, or Foden. With Foden coming off of a breakout season it may be best to let him be the RW and put Doku on the left. Savinho can start every other week or once in a while. We do know that when he plays he is so explosive and exciting. In Chelsea VS City, Foden was rested so Savinho could start but I do expect Foden to get minutes otherwise. So that leaves us in the RCM role with an empty spot. I think it is best to put Bernardo there but we do know that Pep plays Kovacic as a rotation player along with Doku.

So where does Gundogan fit in? What about Savinho? I don’t think it is any bit respectful to ‘want’ someone to get injured, but that’s really the only way for a spot to open up and offer a rotation. Also, Joao Cancelo looks to me like he is set to stay at City, so does that mean Akanji and Ake lose minutes due to Gvardiol taking their place? Or does Walker finally leave, Cancelo sets up on RB and everything stays sorted?

After all, I think the solution to this ‘headache’ is to offer rotations to aging or young players who don’t need to start week in and week out.