Martin Blackburn, Northern-based Football Writer for The Sun, has claimed that Kyle Walker is among the defenders who could drop out of the Manchester City team for their next game against Shakhtar Donetsk tomorrow night.
Manchester City-focused Twitter channel @City_Xtra notified followers of some anticipated team changes, attributing them to Blackburn’s Twitter handle @SunMartinB.
Kyle Walker is facing a battle to hold onto his spot in the City team.
Pep Guardiola is keen to give a full debut to Joao Cancelo after confirming he is now ready. There could also be a change at centre back after Stones and Otamendi both struggled at Carrow Road.
— City Xtra (@City_Xtra) September 16, 2019
The tweet from @City_Xtra said that Walker faces a battle to retain his first team place in Pep Guardiola’s line-up, with summer signing Joao Cancelo set to replace him, while there could also be a change at centre-back in place of either John Stones or Nicolas Otamendi.
Manchester City’s defenders have come in for criticism from some pundits in recent days. Tony Cascarino told talkSPORT that Walker was “poor” and “way off” in Saturday’s defeat at Norwich and expects him to drop out of the team.
On Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, Jamie Carragher said that Otamendi is “not good enough to play for Manchester City“, while Gary Neville feels that Guardiola’s team will relinquish the Premier League title if they persist with Stones and Otamendi at centre-back.
These Manchester City fans on Twitter called for changes to the team’s defensive line-up:
Walker and Fernandinho at CB. Cancelo right back and Mendy left! The best four we got out there.
— Faisal Balsharaf (@fbalsharaf) September 17, 2019
Just change otamendi that’s our problem
— Sheikh Mansour🇺🇸🇬🇭 (@sheikhmansour12) September 16, 2019
https://twitter.com/akaas07/status/1173715350254424064
He should be dropped after Saturday
— Craig (@oggy79) September 17, 2019
Play Walker and Garcia at the back with mendy at left back and cancelo at right back
— ashley foulds (@FouldsAshley) September 16, 2019
Walker (then cancelo RB) or Ferna CB instead of Otamendi
— Ren. (@RenMCFC) September 16, 2019
Dinho and Garcia at cb for shakhtar cancelo and angeliño at fullback
— Ry (@rst2126) September 16, 2019
Should Guardiola drop the likes of Walker, Stones and Otamendi after the defeat at Norwich? Join in the discussion by commenting below!
