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Manchester City: 5 players who will benefit from Premier League restart

By Ashwin Varkey

SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND - MARCH 04: Sergio Aguero of Manchester City celebrates with teammates after scoring his sides first goal during the FA Cup Fifth Round match between Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester City at Hillsborough on March 04, 2020 in Sheffield, England. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND - MARCH 04: Sergio Aguero of Manchester City celebrates with teammates after scoring his sides first goal during the FA Cup Fifth Round match between Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester City at Hillsborough on March 04, 2020 in Sheffield, England. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) /
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Manchester City
Sergio Aguero, Manchester City (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) /

Manchester City resume on the football pitch with a tricky fixture to Arsenal and Pep will be looking to get the squad ready for the Champions League challenge

Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City team will return to Premier League action. They enter the restart in a strange state with The Champions League, their ultimate prize, commencing in August. The current resumption focuses solely on the domestic schedule.

For City, this lessens the value and significance of the games. They are 25 points behind Liverpool. Even with their game-in-hand, a home game against Arsenal which will kick off Project Restart on June 17, Liverpool needs just two wins from nine matches to secure the Premier League title.

Manchester City is also comfortably in the top four. They are 12 points clear of Manchester United in fifth. So until Champions League commences, the only matches of importance for City come in the FA Cup, against Newcastle United in the quarter-finals and they will be looking to defend their crown. This is an ideal time for Guardiola to experiment with his team and plan for the future.

#5 Joao Cancelo

The right-back signed in a player-plus-cash deal worth around £60million with Danilo heading to Juventus in the summer. Joao Cancelo is defensively weaker than other right-backs due to a deficiency of defensive positioning and awareness. Even with his extreme pace, he struggles to maintain his position and hold a level of concentration required to defend under periods of intense pressure.

But when it comes to attacking,this is where Cancelo shows his worth. Despite being a right-back, Cancelo’s key attributes are his technical dribbling ability on the ball, vision and distributing. He can pick the ball up from his half and viscously attack open spaces in the middle of the field. Cancelo needs to step up before Guardiola goes into the market again.

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