Even for Pep Guardiola, who can find solutions to the most complex of issues, he can’t play seven defenders every week when there are only four spots in his Manchester City XI.
Rotation has often been the way forward for that particular dilemma. Guardiola likes a small squad but also different options for different systems. It’s rare he moves forward with one centre-back pairing, for example. Not at this stage of the season at least.
A couple of seasons ago, John Stones and Ruben Dias were undroppable to the point where Aymeric Laporte felt he had to leave City. Then Nathan Ake and Manu Akanji stepped up and it was Kyle Walker out of the side and Stones moved forward into midfield. This season, it’s Akanji and Dias who appear the go-to centre-back pairing.
Ake’s injury and Stones’ late arrival have given those two a run of starts, and they have been the pairing from the start for seven of City’s nine games so far this season. The exceptions were Watford and Slovan Bratislava.
Akanji has started every Premier League game so far plus the Community Shield. Dias, Gvardiol and Lewis all have six starts in those seven games. In all competitions, those four are all in the top appearance-makers so far with nine or 10.
In fact, the back four of Lewis, Dias, Akanji and Gvardiol has started five games already this season. Of the other five games, all four started at Newcastle but Lewis was in midfield, and three started against Arsenal when Lewis was benched for the only time this campaign so far. Three of the four started in Slovakia this week, too, and three of them ended the win over Brentford in a clash that Lewis had started.
Injuries have forced his hand, but Guardiola looks to have settled on a preferred back four at the start of the season and it will be up to the likes of Stones, Ake and Walker to prove him wrong.
“We’re ready when we’re called upon,” Stones said this week. “The boys have been playing really well. We’ve all had our chances and it’s about being ready when called upon. We know how much we get rotated. He uses our strengths differently for different opposition. That’s why we’ve been so successful over the years in different competitions.”
That is true, and if City are successful this season it will be by doing things Guardiola’s way. But there is always the old cliche that defences win you titles. And how many settled back fours can be closely associated with title-winning teams?
When City often put their winning runs together at the turn of a year and into the run-in, it often coincides with a starting line up who emerge as Guardiola’s best XI that season. In defence at least, it feels like the four players currently with the shirt have a head start in being in that XI.
Look at their rivals, too. Liverpool have fielded the same back four in six out of their seven Premier League games so far, with Ibrahmia Konate a half-time substitute in the other game to keep a consistent back line. Arsenal have started William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes in every game, with Ben White starting four games at right-back, Jurien Timber starting five across both full-back positions, and Ricardo Calafiori in for the last two games.
The teams leading the way at the top have kept rotation in defence to a minimum. Despite Guardiola’s preference for rotation, their early-season form has been built on consistency at the back.
As he searches for solutions to key absentees further forward, the defence looks like it could be a constant that can keep the Blues in touch at the top until City can really hit their stride.
