Man City fans are hoping to see one of their young players in Champions League action against Sevilla on Wednesday.
We seem to have been here before.
Manchester City will take to the Etihad Stadium turf on Wednesday for an essentially meaningless game, and Pep Guardiola will use it to rest some of his key players. City and Sevilla’s Champions League fates have already been determined, so there is no need to put extra miles on the legs of Kevin de Bruyne, Joao Cancelo, and others.
When games like this come around, there are understandable cries from fans to get the kids involved. They rarely start games at other times of the season, so why not?
It happened plenty of times in 2017/18 and 2018/19 with Phil Foden, and it’s happening a lot with Cole Palmer now.
Foden – the shining example of what City’s academy can produce who last month signed a new long-term contract with the club – made his City debut in November 2017 in a Champions League group stage defeat of Feyenoord. He went on to make nine more appearances that season, heightening expectations to such an extent that in 2018/19 Guardiola was constantly bombarded with questions about why he wasn’t starting the English youngster more.
Palmer made his City debut in a League Cup match in September 2020, before becoming a regular feature of City squads last season. The fact that the Wythenshawe-born attacker scored in all three cup competitions last season created a sense of expectation that he would be a key part of Guardiola’s team this season, but that has so far not been the case.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is a multitude of reasons why Palmer doesn’t feature every time City are playing a ‘weaker’ opponent, or when they are already a few goals up.
But as Guardiola hinted when addressing the media on Tuesday, he is fully aware of Palmer’s talent.
“Yes,” the manager responded when asked if Palmer was fit and available for the visit of Sevilla, “he trained after the game [Leicester] and trained really well.
“He doesn’t have to show me anything or anything special. If he plays – I don’t know yet, I need to speak with staff and doctors and see the training session to decide – but he has to be himself. If he is here it’s because he has all the attributes to play with us. In every game I want players to play their best. Tomorrow he doesn’t have to prove anything special to me to get another opportunity. We have Phil, we have in the future.”
That should go some way to dispelling the idea that Palmer is under huge pressure to prove himself when he gets the opportunity to start. Of course, if he scores a hat trick on Wednesday then it would do him no harm, but ultimately Pep is not going to change his opinion of his next academy gem.
With Palmer, as it was with Foden, it’s a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’, he starts playing more regularly.
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