Should Blues risk seeing the back of Ake?

ONE of the most pleasing aspects of City’s win over Liverpool for Pep Guardiola was the options that he didn’t even need.

- By SIMON BAJKOWSKI

John Stones and Rayan Ait-Nouri weren't required to help out the defence, Tijjani Reijnders was unused on the bench, Omar Marmoush only played the last 20 minutes and Abdukodir Khusanov didn’t even make the squad. The determination in the squad to get over what captain Bernardo Silva called the ‘guilt’ of last season is, according to Guardiola, resulting in fewer injuries.

“Why were there a lot of injuries last season and this season, hopefully, we don’t have them now? When you are not there, you get injured,” he said on Sunday.

“When you are focused and you want to win and you want to be ready... Johan Cruyff told me: if you are ready, you don’t get injured. Don’t tell me why.