At the Amex Stadium Sterling, Sané and Touré sat it out with Foden. Against Brighton Guardiola’s solution was to squeeze an extra striker into an untypical 3‑5‑2 formation. Sterling is one whose City career appears in the balance after his failure to convince Guardiola in 2016-17. Guardiola fielded the same Agüero-Jesus pairing as at Brighton in a 3-4-1-2 with which City struggled to a 2-2 draw. As against Brighton, Guardiola’s team brightened at the Riverside following shrewd utilisation of Sterling and Sané, who each came on just after half-time.

Source: The Guardian August 20, 2017 21:31 UTC