How Man City should line up vs Huddersfield Town in FA Cup third round

Pep Guardiola must decide whether to go strong or rotate his Manchester City starting XI for the visit of Championship strugglers Huddersfield on Sunday.

City could view the FA Cup third round tie as an opportunity to rest some key players ahead of next week's trip to Newcastle. However, with so few fixtures in January, Guardiola may also decide to go strong and build some momentum ahead of the clash at St James' Park in the Premier League.

Guardiola could welcome back Kevin De Bruyne after his return to the matchday squad against Sheffield United last week, while Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku are back in training. John Stones will miss out with injury while a sickness bug has prevented Kalvin Phillips, Bernardo Silva, Matheus Nunes and Scott Carson from training much this week. Rodri has been allowed to travel home to Madrid after the death of his grandmother.

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Read how our writers think City should line up below and use the interactive team selector to pick your own starting XI:

Simon Bajkowski

Normally a game like this would bring a question of how strong Guardiola should go, but with the illness hitting the squad and Rodri absent it feels like a game of pick who is available. With questions still over Haaland, Julian Alvarez is the go-to option in attack.

I'd give the people what they want and start De Bruyne alongside Phil Foden in midfield. A full 90 minutes is surely too much on the Belgian's return, but better to start and come off to have the rhythm and feel of the game from the start.

At the back, this could be a game for Ruben Dias to start finding his consistency and is another chance for Manu Akanji to