Aymeric Laporte faces crucial six weeks in Man City career after Pep Guardiola admission

"I had a lot of doubts because that position is for Aymer," said Pep Guardiola when explaining why he played Manuel Akanji at left-back for the first time in his Manchester City career, in the biggest game of their season.

With Nathan Ake injured and Joao Cancelo out on loan, City had something of a left-back dilemma against Arsenal - yet the obvious solution was to play Aymeric Laporte on his favoured side.

Laporte, though, was left on the bench for the 13th time this year from 22 games that he has been available for. Of the nine he has started, three have come in cup competitions and four have been directly before bigger games that he has sat out. After playing such a key role in defence for the last two seasons, Laporte feels firmly out of favour this year.

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His wider stats for this season suggest the problem has been persisting for longer than just 2023. Injury has kept him out of 15 games, but he has been unused in as many games (16) as he has started. Limited to just 19 appearances all season, 57 per cent of Laporte's outings have come in the cups, and he has the fewest minutes of any of City's other centre-back options by some distance. Only Rico Lewis and Sergio Gomez have played less than Laporte in defence.

"He is our best player in the build-up by far, he has an incredible ability to read," Guardiola continued on Wednesday, going on to explain how Akanji's qualities in one-vs-one duels saw him get the nod out of position against Arsenal. It was a tactic that worked to perfection, with Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli anonymous and City's fluid backline unlucky not to keep a clean sheet.

As long as Ake remains out,