After a relatively relaxed start to the season, Manchester City's real campaign begins this week as the fixture list starts to look more familiar with the return of midweek fixtures.
Ignoring the friendly in Barcelona last week, City have had four Premier League fixtures in four weeks, giving Pep Guardiola chance to rest his players and play a full-strength side in each game, as well as getting valuable time to work on tactics on the training ground. Now, Wednesday's game against Nottingham Forest is the first of six games in 18 days before the September international break, offering a quick return to a familiar schedule of three days between games.
After the Forest game, City travel to Aston Villa on Saturday, before the Champions League returns with a trip to Sevilla. Two tough home games follow against Tottenham and Borussia Dortmund, with a testing fixture at Wolves completing the set. And Guardiola has already revealed his hand when it comes to rotation of his key players.
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Particularly, Guardiola has confirmed his plan for Erling Haaland, City's new prolific striker who has six goals and an assist from his four league games so far.
"I tell you now when we have games every three days that Erling will not play, I will play Julian [Alvarez]," Guardiola said recently, reiterating that stance after the Crystal Palace victory on Saturday.
"It's important for us to have a guy like [Haaland], Julian as well, you will see when he plays. Last game in Barcelona he could have scored a hat-trick easily. I see in the training sessions with Julian. He does everything, a guy with an incredible sense of goal. The second goal, a cross, Julian fights because he's there, we need people there."
Dropping Haaland would be a brave move, especially if that is against Forest on Wednesday — although Guardiola has been clear that the fixture list will take priority over Haaland's desire to play every game. Even the likes of Kevin De Bruyne have had to get used to the occasional game on the bench to manage their fitness.
With City having limited numbers in their squad this season, there is no benefit to overworking Haaland, and every benefit to utilising Alvarez as much as possible. If he's impressing Guardiola in training and in the opportunities he does get, then he deserves to play in some of these upcoming fixtures.
And with Forest at home being one of the easier of these games, on paper at least, maybe Alvarez will start over Haaland on Wednesday. That would keep Haaland fresh for the Sevilla-Spurs-Dortmund trio of games, and give Alvarez a chance to build on the two games where he has impressed Guardiola.
Alvarez could even keep his place against Aston Villa, given that Haaland was signed — among other reasons — to help City in the Champions League. With those two tricky European fixtures next week, plus a visit of Tottenham, who have enjoyed themselves at the Etihad in recent visits, Haaland was brought in to be the difference in those games.
Similarly, the likes of Sergio Gomez, Kalvin Phillips and Cole Palmer may get more chances in the upcoming two games as Guardiola rotates his squad as promised. If he is rested, then Alvarez will have a golden opportunity to really show City what he can offer, out of the shadow of Haaland, as a genuine alternative to the number nine rather than a back-up.
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