De Bruyne ‘not fully fit’ to face Chelsea side without Mount or Chilwell

Kevin De Bruyne (£11.8m) misses out on Manchester City’s meeting with Chelsea because he is “not fully fit”.

That is according to a club press release issued on Saturday afternoon as Pep Guardiola names a rather unconventional side at the Etihad Stadium.

With John Stones (£5.1m) serving the last of his three-match ban, the Manchester City manager has chosen three centre-backs in Nathan Aké (£5.4m), Aymeric Laporte (£6.0m) and Ruben Dias (£6.0m).

Two wing-backs appear in the team, namely João Cancelo (£5.8m) and Benjamin Mendy (£5.9m) but Rodrigo (£5.3m) is the only recognised central midfielder.

Wingers Ferran Torres (£6.9m) and Raheem Sterling (£11.0m) also start as well as two centre-forwards in Sergio Aguero (£10.3m) and Gabriel Jesus (£9.1m).

Chelsea’s line-up is more straight forward as Thomas Tuchel goes with his usual 3-4-3 although there are key absences there too.

Mason Mount (£7.3m) and Ben Chilwell (£5.9m) miss out on the matchday squad entirely while Kai Havertz (£8.3m) and Kurt Zouma (£5.3m) drop to the bench.

César Azpilicueta (£5.9m) is in the back-three with Andreas Christensen (£4.7m) and Antonio Rüdiger (£4.7m) while Reece James (£5.1m) and Marcos Alonso (£5.7m) are in the wing-back roles. The latter makes only his second start since Gameweek 31.

Billy Gilmour (£4.3m) earns back-to-back league starts and features alongside N’Golo Kanté (£4.9m).

Christian Pulisic (£8.3m) and Hakim Ziyech (£7.9m) start either side of Timo Werner (£9.2m) in the front-three.

Triple Gameweek 35 Line-ups

Manchester City XI: Ederson, Cancelo, Dias, Laporte, Ake, Mendy, Rodrigo, Torres, Sterling, Aguero, Jesus.

Chelsea XI: E Mendy; Rüdiger, Christensen, Azpilicueta; Alonso, Kanté, Gilmour, R James; Pulisic, Werner, Ziyech.

Triple Gameweek 35 so far…

Christian Benteke (£5.5m) opened the scoring as Crystal Palace beat Sheffield United 2-0 on Saturday afternoon.

It was his third goal in his last five away matches and he could have walked away from Bramall Lane with more to his name.

The former Liverpool man had one fine effort blocked before the woodwork denied him in the second half.

However, Eberechi Eze (£5.8m) proved to be the star of the show, registering an assist and scoring in the second half to claim maximum bonus points.

By contrast, Wilfried Zaha (£7.2m) was relatively peripheral, stationed on the left-hand side of attacking midfield rather than in in his usual out-of-position centre-forward berth.

Meanwhile, there was a clean sheet for Crystal Palace’s defenders, Gary Cahill (£4.5m) benefitting the most thanks to his assist for Eze’s goal while Joel Ward (£4.3m) picked up a first-half yellow card.

Provisional bonus points

• 3 – Eberechi Eze
• 2 – Christian Benteke, Gary Cahill

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