Guardiola shocks with Grealish, De Bruyne move as 'worst Man City ace slammed'

Pep Guardiola stunned Paul Merson by leaving Jack Grealish on the Man City bench until late and not hauling off one of his “worst players” in Matheus Nunes.

The embattled champions dropped more points in a 2-2 draw at Crystal Palace on 7 December, while losing Rico Lewis to a controversial red card.

But despite the England international seemingly being restored to a key role after his turn in the 3-0 midweek win over Nottingham Forest (4 December) he wasn’t introduced until the 86th minute, and even then it came at the expense of star man Kevin De Bruyne, not Nunes.

Merson reacted to Grealish’s late introduction live on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday (6.46pm): “Yeah he’s on for Kevin De Bruyne. I can’t believe Nunes is still on this football pitch. He’s been one of the worst players on the pitch in my opinion, he should have been brought off a long time ago.

“He’s on the pitch still and Grealish comes on for Kevin De Bruyne… this is their season in the palm of their hand here now.”

Matheus Nunes signing comes back to bite Man City?

Football Insider opinion

City’s struggles to find an able back-up for Rodri are well-documented after the failed Kalvin Phillips experiment, and now the Ballon d’Or winner is out injured long-term it is really harming them.

Nunes was something of a surprise signing two summers ago and it doesn’t look like he is long for the Etihad as he has been pegged as a possible bargaining chip to help Guardiola tempt Newcastle to let go of Bruno Guimaraes [Daily Mail].

The win in midweek snapped a run of seven games without one and fans would have hoped normal service would resume thereafter, but the title defence is looking increasingly beleaguered and the manager’s selections aren’t showing clear signs of a recovery plan.

Both Grealish and De Bruyne have been short of their best for at least a year with injuries and lack of starts a feature.

The ex-Aston Villa captain is a potential candidate to leave and the Belgian superstar could be even sign a deal to move on as early as next month as his future remains a source of speculation.

It’s hard to escape the view that in the current circumstances the pair would be central characters in a revival, but Guardiola doesn’t seem to be as certain and his stance is backfiring more often than not.

Whether that speaks to issues behind the scenes or the infamously-obsessive Catalan overthinking his response to an historically bad run remains to be seen, but he needs to figure things out fast.

In other Man City news, Etihad chiefs accept that one big-name star should already be gone.

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