Manchester City missing first team stars for Community Shield clash with Manchester United | OneFootball

Manchester United face Manchester City tomorrow (Saturday) in the Community Shield at Wembley.

Pep Guardiola’s side will be out for revenge after United beat their city rivals in the FA Cup final at the end of May to salvage an otherwise difficult campaign.

However, due to the European Championships this summer, City will be missing a handful of first team stars for the season’s curtain-raiser.

As reported by The Standard, Euro finalists, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Phil Foden and Rodri will not begin their pre-season programme until next week and will therefore will miss the weekend fixture.

None of Kevin De Bruyne, Jeremy Doku, Bernardo Silva, Manuel Akanji or Ruben Dias have featured in any warm-up games for City but are all in contention for minutes at Wembley.

The missing men will serve as a boost to United’s hopes of repeating the outcome achieved in the Cup Final, but Erik ten Hag is also without some key first team members.

Similarly to City, United had players who went deep in the Euros, as well as the Copa America held in the United States.

Furthermore, ill-timed injuries to Rasmus Hojlund and Leny Yoro picked up on the pre-season Tour have rocked Ten Hag’s early plans.

Luke Shaw, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Victor Lindelof are all expected to miss out having not travelled with the squad..

Both clubs will be hoping to fine tune tactical issues and boost fitness levels one last time before the Premier League officially gets underway next weekend.

United kick-off the new season with a home game against Fulham on Friday August 16, with City travelling to London once more to face Chelsea on the Sunday.

Ten Hag will be desperate to go into the league opener with his team full of confidence and another win against Guardiola’s champions would certainly achieve that.

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