Man City’s best XI when injured star Kevin De Bruyne is back available

Manchester City have had to cope without their best player for almost the entirety of the season yet are still only two points off the top of the table.

Pep Guardiola has had to weather injury issues to other key players in his thin squad too. At one point, Mateo Kovacic, John Stones and Jack Grealish were all sidelined and at times a full bench could not be named, with two goalkeepers often in situ.

Others stepped in and showed their class, with Jeremy Doku now challenging Grealish for his spot. Matheus Nunes has been another pair of fresh legs to add rejuvenated hunger to a squad that won the Treble last season.

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But perhaps neither new boy gets in City’s best XI when De Bruyne returns back to action. Erling Haaland will probably never be usurped as the main centre-forward and 13 of his 52 goals last season were serviced by De Bruyne.

Julian Alvarez has been brilliant in behind the striker in the Belgian’s absence but no-one gets ahead of the No.17 and it’s hard to see where else he would fit in. He was played on the right against Arsenal and it didn’t work, and it seems unlikely that Guardiola would play two attacking midfielders.

The ever-malleable Bernardo Silva has hardly wavered in form and peaked at the right time towards the back end of last season. If he begins on the right then Phil Foden will be placed on the left.

He has elegantly dovetailed with Alvarez behind Haaland when cutting in from the flank, seemingly an instruction from Guardiola to do so. Foden’s most favoured position is that number 10 position but if he cannot get a break there with De Bruyne sidelined, he