Manchester City tactics: Pep Guardiola should base team around underrated star

Manchester City tactics: Pep Guardiola needs to base his team around future world-class talent Leroy Sane.

Manchester City tactics: Leroy Sane has seemingly lost his starting place under Pep Guardiola due to the reshuffling to a front two rather than a front three. This meant that before Sergio Aguero’s injury, Sane, who had a stellar campaign last season, had lost his place to Gabriel Jesus.

The star has done well though every time he’s come on for Manchester City and has been banging in goals.

The 21-year-old has made only three starts this season and has made four off the bench.

However, despite his limited opportunities, he’s scored three goals and made two assists. The young German has clearly become a key goal scoring threat for Guardiola and frankly he doesn’t deserve to sit on the bench.

And despite his low playing minutes he’s also managed to make 1.4 shots per game and 1.3 key passes per game. (Whoscored). If he had started every game, these numbers would be higher.

Though, Pep Guardiola has surprisingly stated that Sane deserved to sit on the bench at the start of the season.

"“He didn’t arrive good. He didn’t make a good pre-season, he was not good in those games and he didn’t deserve to play.”"

However, after several good performances, it looks as if though Sane is in the coach’s good books once again.

Sane has clearly improved since his debut season last year. After a slow start to life at City, he only managed to become a regular in the team about halfway into the season. At which point, he exploded onto the Premier League scene. But, only managed to score five goals from 26 appearances last term.

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Now, only after seven appearances, he’s scored three. He’s clearly on his way to at least reach double figures this season.

Much like how after Chelsea FC purchased Eden Hazard, Sane was relatively an unknown, but promising star. Hazard only became the world-class talent he is now after Chelsea realised what a gem they had and decided to base the team around him. Now, it’s time that Pep realises the potential Sane has and makes him a key player.

Everything should be done to ensure the technically gifted young German gets the service he requires to bang in goals and make assists. The Manchester City tactics Guardiola plays may also be hindering Sane due to his high reliance on possession based methodical attacking football. I’m not saying Guardiola should change his tactics to suit Sane, but, he should assimilate Sane into the possession based football City play rather than using him in the last 10 minutes of a game for counter-attacking.

And while I’m not saying that Sane is as good as Hazard. There’s no way I could say that as a Chelsea fan or as a neutral. But, Sane has the potential to become as good as Hazard. At 21-years-old he’s still not yet in the peak years of his career and is still developing. Now is not the time for Pep to drop him or make him sit on the bench right at these crucial years that can either make or break a player.

A talent like Sane needs to be nurtured and developed to become the best he can be. Much like how Chelsea made Hazard a key starter and based the team and tactics around him which saw him score nine goals and make 11 assists in his first season at the club. This season, I expect a lot of goals from Sane and he needs to be a starter and the team should be based around him for the foreseeable future if Manchester City want him to become the best player in the Premiere League which I believe he has the potential to be one day.

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Pep Guardiola needs to base his Manchester City tactics around Sane and realise what a talent this guy is , and or at the very least, start him in every match.