City Watch: City's pre-season tour well underway

With Manchester City’s pre-season tour in the USA over halfway through, it’s hard to believe that we’re less than two weeks until the start of the new season.

It feels like yesterday that we beat West Ham to make it four Premier League titles in a row, but it won’t be long before the Blues battle it out again to attempt an unprecedented fifth league title on the bounce.

Before all that though, City have been taking part in their usual pre-season games abroad, this year, over in the States. After losing 4-3 to Celtic last week, Pep and the players made their way to New York to play Italian side, AC Milan. Another pretty thrilling contest saw the Blues lose again, this time 3-2, with Erling Haaland getting on the scoresheet. In a fairly unusual set of events, Manchester City walked out onto the pitch for the second half in a different kit to what they’d started the game in. 

The new third kit had been released the day before the game, but unusually, they hadn’t worn the kit for the entirety of the game, only the second half. I do feel like the pre-season tours are becoming more about the marketing than they are warming the players up for the new season the more time goes on. In an age where the fans feel like there’s a huge gap between themselves and the players, pre-season, in my opinion, should be a period where people feel they can get a little closer to the stars and see a side they don’t whilst the season is in full flow.

However, with the tours always being oversees these days, it’s hard to see how this is possible. When Covid was still around back in 2021 and fans were just being allowed back in stadiums for the new season, City’s pre season games were played at the Academy stadium, giving fans a chance to see the players before the new season. At the time, I was actually quite excited this prospect, only for my excitement to be ruined by a Covid outbreak and the games being put behind closed doors anyway! My point is, does more success take the players further and further from the core of the fans in Manchester?

There is a flip side to this of course, and it’s that as the football club grows, becomes more successful and therefore pulls in a bigger audience, pre-season is a chance for the team to go and play in front of fans who would usually have to watch on TV. With so much talk of Premier League games potentially being played overseas, something by the way I completely disagree with, I’d rather see City play abroad before the season begins rather than during.

It’s an interesting topic to be debated as to whether the players are becoming further from the fans due to recent success and therefore, the club growing generally. As Manchester City become more decorated as time goes on, I think this will only increase the lengths the club go to to let all fans across the world have the chance to see City live.

Whether it’s right or wrong that the pre-season game are played away from England, the Blues have now played three of their 4 warm up games. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, City faced Spanish side, Barcelona. The game ended in a 2-2 draw, before City lost 4-1 in a penalty shootout. I think the results of these games are to be taken with a pinch of salt, however, there was one interesting selection that seemed quite surprising. 

Kalvin Phillips, who spent half of last season on loan to West Ham, started the game but not in his natural position as a defensive midfielder, but a centre back. We’ve seen Pep nurture players into different positions before, in fact, we even saw him do something similar with Fernandinho towards the end of his time at the club. Is Guardiola trying something new in an attempt to integrate the ex-Leeds man back into the team?

I’m sure we’ll find out more as the new season gets underway, but before that, we play our final pre-season game against Chelsea on Saturday which I’ll discuss in the next edition of City Watch.