Abdu can feel right at home in his new role

FOUR games into this season and City have fielded three different right-backs. A position that many expected to be a problem when it wasn't addressed in the summer could be proving to be just that.

- By TYRONE MARSHALL

Tino Livramento was presented as the potential solution in June, but Newcastle's Champions League qualification stripped away the possibility of a cut-price deal and the Blues instead opted to look for in-house fixes.

There is a certain irony in that, in the summer when City finally signed a left-back, the problem position switched to the other flank. The rapid disintegration of Kyle Walker’s game and the disappointing way his Etihad career ended left a void to be filled.

Rico Lewis had first dibs on the role, but the games against Wolves and Tottenham showed both his strengths and his flaws. Excellent on the ball when City are in command, he thrived at Molineux. A week later, his defensive issues were exposed by Spurs and his lack of physicality was a problem.

Lewis signed a new deal on Friday to keep him at the club for another five years, but he used the contract announcement to again stress he prefers to play in midfield. That is probably the case for Matheus Nunes as well.

But if Lewis, 20, might yet have a future in the centre of the pitch, Nunes has been told he doesn’t. Signed from Wolves for £53m to play in a central role, he is now being reinvented as a right-back.