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Manchester City will have selection dilemmas when the Premier League resumes this weekend
Pep Guardiola has a dilemma at left-back when Manchester City host Everton on Saturday. And it's not the left-back dilemma that fans have been worried about for years.
Rather than having no players available to tackle the role, City signed specialist Rayan Ait-Nouri in the summer and he had a promising debut before injury scuppered his start to life at the Etihad. In his absence, Nico O'Reilly has not put a foot wrong and could consider any dropping very harsh.
Left-back isn't the only puzzle for Guardiola to solve though as he welcomes back Omar Marmoush into the squad. Marmoush has been celebrating Egypt's qualification for the World Cup in recent days and soon he will have to try and give City fans something to celebrate.
The £59m forward was the pick of City's January signings, coming in to stabilise a team that had lost its way and starting a promising partnership with Erling Haaland in attack. He bagged a hat-trick against Newcastle in one of his first appearances for the club and his thunderous effort against Bournemouth in May was voted as the best goal scored all season in the Premier League.
This year he is yet to get going though. A few scratchy games on the left wing were followed by an injury picked up with Egypt in the September international break, and Marmoush has missed the last seven games where City have found their form.
On the left, Jeremy Doku has found his best form for City and is showing signs that he could be working out how to feed Erling Haaland in front of goal. To his right, Phil Foden looks to be rediscovering the form that made him the best player in the Premier League in the year before Marmoush's arrival.
In addition to the obvious block that Haaland represents, Doku and Foden have appeared as the main threats to minutes for Marmoush. If those two can stay fit and keep supplying the Norwegian, it is going to be difficult for the former Frankfurt man.
He will get games though, not only because City have to rotate in three competitions but because Guardiola loves in-form players pushing each other for starts. Those in-house battles have been the bedrock of the team's success and were sorely missed last season when injury ravaged the squad.
Guardiola has to find a way to get Marmoush back into the starting XI but, more importantly, Marmoush has to find a way to force Guardiola's thinking. Whether it is on the left, in the middle, or even on the right, the 27-year-old has to take very opportunity he gets to show that he can be as important to City's attack.
For all the positives around Doku and Foden, City still find themselves seven games into their Premier League campaign with only Haaland having scored more than one goal. Marmoush ended up as second-top scorer for the Blues in the league last season with seven despite only arriving in January, and if he can start to find the back of the net again Guardiola will certainly take notice.
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