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- Players from England, Norway, Spain & France expected to miss Man City’s Asia pre-season tour
- Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol & Antoine Semenyo are among those set to travel with the squad
- City face Inter Milan, K-League All Stars XI & Atletico Madrid across Hong Kong & Seoul fixtures
Manchester City’s pre-season tour of Hong Kong and South Korea is set to go ahead without the club’s England, Norway, Spain and France internationals, with the majority of World Cup participants from those nations still in their post-tournament rest periods.
The 46-year-old Enzo Maresca has been working with a smaller group at the City Football Academy since pre-season began on 20 July, with the World Cup’s deep runs from those nations pushing expected return dates for several first-team regulars into mid-August at the earliest.
Among those confirmed to be taking part in the Asia tour, according to Sam Lee of The Athletic, are central defensive pair Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol – with the 24-year-old Croatian having recently signed a new long-term contract keeping him at the Etihad Stadium until 2031, according to ESPN, adding further cause for optimism around his inclusion.
Antoine Semenyo is also expected to travel, with the Ghana international having exited the World Cup in the group stage and completed his rest period in time to join the squad for the three-match series in Asia.
Alongside those three, Mateo Kovacic, Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Abdukodir Khusanov are all expected to feature, providing Maresca with a core of experienced senior players around which he can begin implementing his methods before the full squad is available.
Report: England, Norway, Spain and France internationals to miss Asia tour
According to Lee, the players most likely to be absent from City’s Asia tour are those from England, Norway, Spain and France – nations whose World Cup campaigns ran deepest into the tournament and therefore require the longest recovery windows before players are ready to return to club training.
That group includes Rodri, whose Spain side won the FIFA World Cup on Sunday, with the Ballon d’Or holder not expected back at the City Football Academy until mid-August at the earliest.
Erling Haaland is similarly absent, with Norway’s run to the World Cup quarter-final in North America meaning the striker requires additional recovery time before rejoining his club teammates, despite having been one of the individual standouts of the tournament.
New signing Elliot Anderson is also expected to miss the Asia leg of pre-season, with the £116 million arrival from Nottingham Forest likely to make his debut at the Community Shield against Arsenal at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on 16 August instead.
What does the tour squad tell us about Man City’s pre-season preparations?
The composition of the group travelling to Asia reflects both the logistical reality of a World Cup summer and the strength in depth that Maresca has at his disposal even without his biggest names.
Dias and Gvardiol in central defence, Kovacic and Reijnders in midfield and Semenyo as an attacking option gives the travelling squad a genuine senior core – rather than simply the academy and fringe players who might have been expected to make up the numbers in a World Cup summer.
The three tour fixtures – against Inter Milan in Hong Kong on 1 August, followed by a K-League All Stars XI and Atletico Madrid in Seoul on 5 and 9 August – provide Maresca with meaningful opposition against which to test his early ideas, even if the squad he fields will be considerably different from the group he expects to field when the Premier League season begins.
For director of football Hugo Viana, the tour also represents an opportunity to continue assessing the squad during what remains an active transfer window, with several positions still understood to be under consideration for further reinforcement before competitive action returns.
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Source: Cityxtra.co.uk
