Manchester City defender Rico Lewis has barely featured for the Blues this season after starting the opening two matches
Rico Lewis
Rico Lewis
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Everton would rather they were able to play Jack Grealish against Manchester City, and the Blues would probably prefer it as well.
The fact that Grealish is still under contract at the Etihad, and only on loan at Everton, means that Premier League rules do not allow him to feature against his parent club.
It's a blow for David Moyes given how well Grealish has started but those are the rules everyone signed up to at the time and there was nothing stopping Everton from buying him permanently if they wanted to change that scenario.
It could be said to be a blessing that City don't have to come up against him, but Pep Guardiola may not see it that way. He has seen his defenders go up against Grealish for the last three years in training so not only does he know the forward's game he knows which of his players are the best at stopping him.
Whoever replaces the 30-year-old for Moyes will at least have more of an element of surprise, making it harder for Guardiola to pick his right-back. The expected absence of Abdukodir Khusanov - he was not seen in training on Thursday - looks to make it a straight shootout between three.
John Stones played there in the Champions League game at Monaco, but otherwise the shirt has belonged to Matheus Nunes. From coming off the bench for the injured Khusanov at Arsenal, he then started at Huddersfield and kept his place for the Premier League games with Burnley and Brentford.
The third pick, Rico Lewis, can consider himself out of favour then. He hasn't played at right-back since the defeat to Tottenham in August and his only start since came in midfield in the League Cup at Huddersfield.
After starting the season so strongly at Wolves and then signing a new five-year deal with the club, Lewis has plenty to do if he is to work his way back to being a regular starter. Coming on the back of a decent showing for England Under-21s, he has to hope that being picked to face Grealish's substitute is the start of that road.
The longer Nunes and others keep him out the team, the more pressure that will be attached to the opportunities that he does get to impress.
As City look to get this next block of fixtures off to a positive start, Lewis has to try to convince Guardiola he is the right man for right-back on Saturday.
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