Jeremy Doku came off thee bench for the final minutes
Jeremy Doku came off thee bench for the final minutes
The team news dropped at Selhurst Park to dismay from Manchester City fans.
Why would Pep Guardiola risk the team's momentum by taking out two of the three players who had looked the best against Nottingham Forest in midweek when they claimed their first win in eight games in all competitions? Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku both gave reason for optimism, only to find themselves benched a few days later.
Unless there was a reason for it beyond what has been explained, the answer was as sad as it was familiar. Grealish had felt something in training on Friday and Doku - having been in and out of the squad with injuries - had only just returned from his latest issue and couldn't be risked to start again so soon after Forest.
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Doku came on for the ineffective Savinho in the 79th minute to try and chase a winner, with Grealish being brought on for Kevin De Bruyne in the 86th minute. City were down to ten men by this point, with Rico Lewis's sending off curbing the attacking efforts of the visitors.
There was a bit of a moan at the referee when he blew for full-time as City countered, but they were still around the halfway line when it happened and it was nothing like the situation last season at home to Spurs that left Erling Haaland and his teammates incensed at Simon Hooper. In reality, City aren't strong enough to be that angry these days.
A steady absence of between five and seven key players has fundamentally weakened the team, but on top of that even those that have been in the squad have not been able to perform as everyone would like because of fitness. As Guardiola said with De Bruyne last week, does anyone think he would want to leave Grealish and Doku out after their performance against Forest?
It was the same against Bournemouth last month, when Kyle Walker, Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne all returned to the squad to 'ease' the injury burden. Except Walker's lack of fitness was horribly exposed by Bournemouth, Doku was a late sub and De Bruyne didn't even complete the warm-up; oh, and John Stones and Ruben Dias both dropped out with injuries picked up against Tottenham a few days earlier.
City are clearly missing their injured players, but while it is helpful to Guardiola when his stars make themselves available for matchday squads despite fitness issues that is limited if they cannot have a meaningful impact on the game. If City look much less than the sum of their parts right now, it is because so many of their players are nowhere near 100 per cent.