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Enzo Maresca is seeing some of the Manchester City players with the most minutes under their belt prolong their season and delay their return

It has been a good World Cup for Manchester City. Having sent more players there than any other club, three of the four remaining teams contain at least one footballer that plies their trade at the Etihad with six in total in with a chance of lifting the trophy.

However, as much as that will please club bosses - Julian Alvarez won the World Cup as a Blue in 2022 and Benjamin Mendy was part of the winning France side in 2018 - it is among the worst case scenarios for new boss Enzo Maresca. Whatever happens in the semi-finals, these four teams will all be involved for another full week in the United States.

That almost certainly rules out those six City players of playing any part in pre-season. FIFPro recommends four weeks of rest over the summer, something Pep Guardiola also advocated, and that is the same amount of time between the World Cup final and the Community Shield against Arsenal in Cardiff.

Between those dates, Maresca will train with the players that he has available in Manchester from Monday July 20 before heading to Asia for three friendlies in the first nine days of August.

It is not just that there are so many stars missing for City but the nature of who they are. New £116m signing Elliot Anderson and City left-back Nico O'Reilly were among the players who had not only played the most minutes over the course of the Premier League season but who had seen their game time shoot up.

O'Reilly played around 3,000 minutes more in all competitions last season as he became a key player, while Anderson saw his minutes increase by over 50 per cent and was used even more by Forest than O'Reilly was for City. For those two to be among the six Blues who have not yet concluded their 2025/26 campaigns is far from ideal.

Anderson's absence will be even more difficult for Maresca given that he will also be without Rodri. The Spaniard is expected to have surgery after the World Cup that will see him sidelined again, and Spain's progress to the last four means that an operation is still pending.

Given the hopes that Anderson can fill in for Rodri when required, being without both world-class players in the same position and having seen Bernardo Silva exit in summer will leave Maresca scratching his head over his No.6 plans. Add in the need to give O'Reilly, Marc Guehi as well as Rayan Cherki and James Trafford their rest and it may be a while before the Blues are where they want to be for the season.

City's success in the World Cup will be celebrated internally, but it will hardly help the new coach to get off to a flying start.