Joao Cancelo has been offered a path back to the Bayern Munich starting line-up, his manager says.
Manchester City loanee Cancelo has found himself out of the Bayern side in the last four games, after starting his first four since moving on loan from the Blues in January. He was unused against Stuttgart last week, and only played five minutes in the Champions League win over PSG - although he did come off the bench to assist the tie-killing third goal.
In the aftermath of that PSG win, Bayern's sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic said Cancelo had 'not been training as we envisaged', while boss Julian Nagelsmann praised his replacement Josip Stanisic. Now, Nagelsmann has opened up on that training issue and attempted to draw a line under recent events.
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Reports in Germany say Bayern have already decided not to make Cancelo's loan permanent, and Nagelsmann addressed the situation on Friday by saying: "He will get a chance to start, as of now.
“In one practice he wasn’t really that sharp because he didn’t really like the situation he was in; when he’s not playing not everything is well. There are players who cope with it better, others not as much.
“There was one training session where he was not performing as I wanted him to but I had a really good chat with him.
“I was talking him about my path, about which chances might develop. I think this chat — he was very open as well, it was not just about football — will be really beneficial to him. He was training well after it. He has the joy back on the pitch.
“All the load you have on your shoulders needs to be left off the pitch. I’m going to give him a start to honour his training work and his reaction. I’m pretty confident he will show what he did in practice in the game.”
In his own press conference on Friday, Pep Guardiola refused to comment on Cancelo's omission from the Bayern side, saying only that City will assess his future at the end of the season.
"He's with Bayern Munich," said Guardiola. "At the end of the season we will review the cases - players that are here, not here, loan cases. At the end of the season. Joao is a player for Bayern Munich."
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