Pep Guardiola looks towards youth as Manchester City prepare for longest season in football

City’s players could play 66 matches plus internationals with a Club World Cup in the United States to come next summer

With the impending sale of a World Cup winner and an injury to a £100 million signing, Manchester City’s preparations for what will be the longest campaign in modern football have not been plain sailing.
But as the club picked up their first Community Shield win in their past five attempts, Pep Guardiola put confidence in youth.
City will play in the Fifa Club World Cup next summer and the competition, formatted like an international tournament, will end on July 13 on the east coast of the United States. It could lead to Guardiola utilising young players in his squad over a season that could have 66 matches plus internationals.
Jack Grealish is an immediate injury concern for the start of the Premier League season with a hamstring problem felt in the build-up to the Community Shield win at Wembley. The 28-year-old had been looking to start the season well after losing his England squad place for the European Championship.
“It’s a blow because he played all pre-season, had the rhythm, was aggressive,” said Guardiola. “During the season it happens many times; discomforts, injuries. We didn’t want to take a risk and maybe against Chelsea [next weekend] he will be ready or pretty sure against Ipswich Town, he will be ready. Otherwise, if he’s injured now it could be three weeks or a month out.”
City will be further short in forward areas for the beginning of the season after the club agreed an £81.5 million deal with Atlético Madrid for Julián Álvarez. Yet Grealish will have competition on the left flank this season, with Jérémy Doku taking little time to settle after he was signed a year ago, while Savinho made his first-team debut at Wembley after his summer arrival.
Savinho, 20, who came off the bench in the Community Shield, is among the young players Guardiola can look towards when matches pile up this season. Academy graduates James McAtee (21), on loan at Sheffield United last season, started against Manchester United, while Oscar Bobb (21) was named man of the match after providing the assist for the equaliser.
On the left flank, Savinho adds to the competition and has impressed his manager so far. “He’s been really good,” he said. “So fast. He can go on both sides, right and left. Some can just play left or right but Savinho can play on both sides.
“His impact has been good. He has to try to understand English a little bit to communicate with his mates. Last season in Girona he was one of the best players in the league. The manager from Girona helped him a lot to grow up. It was a good transfer deal for the club. He will get it. He will understand it perfectly.
“I know he can play every three or four days. This is one of the details that we look at, how reliable the player can be because otherwise he cannot play in big, big teams because the demand is like that. We don’t have a bigger squad so everyone is going to help us.”
The Club World Cup could give a different dynamic to a usual season, which is normally hectic for City. Rúben Dias shared the schedule for players on social media, highlighting the lack of rest for Guardiola’s squad.
Bernardo Silva, who scored the equaliser at Wembley, says Guardiola now knows how to get the best out of players with the amount of rest and days off given. The Portugal midfielder was among those given extra time off after the Euros.
“Pep was very generous to us this season,” he said. “He understands that we’ve been playing with the crazy schedule that we have because of Fifa, Uefa, Premier League and all the cups that we have. It’s 70, 80 games a season sometimes, which is not easy for players.
“So it was very generous and now our job is to be serious, to prepare the game well and to come back as fit as possible to another long season, knowing that our rivals came back a little earlier and maybe their physical condition is a bit better than ours.”