Left-back, predictable attack and Liverpool — Man City's five biggest challenges this season

Two months on from the drama and heroics of the final day of the Premier League season, Manchester City are preparing to return to competitive action.

Liverpool are the first opponents of the new season for the Blues when the pair meet in the Community Shield on Saturday, before Pep Guardiola's side kick-off their league campaign with a trip to West Ham on 7 August.

City have just returned from a short pre-season tour in the United States, where they defeated Club America and Bayern Munich 2-1 and 1-0 respectively. After the initial blow of not being able to take Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and John Stones to the US, and losing some players to transfer exits, the tour went fairly well. But there are still some challenges that Guardiola will have to overcome this season if City are to maintain their extraordinary high level.

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Left-back shortage

City want to sign Marc Cucurella from Brighton, but that particular transfer saga looks like it could drag on until the end of the window.

Should Brighton refuse to budge on their £50m asking price and City walk away, then the Blues will attempt to sign someone else. Stuttgart's Borna Sosa has been linked as an alternative option.

However, Guardiola has also said that another option is for him to make do with Joao Cancelo, 19-year-old Joshua Wilson-Esbrand and draft in Nathan Ake as cover at left-back if need be. If that does happen, then he will have to be extremely careful not to burn out Cancelo, even if he is by far the best option.

Tactical tweaks

City's approach last season was to dominate their opponents and control games by creating numerical advantages when attacking. That was