Pep Guardiola’s live briefing to preview Saturday’s Manchester derby at Old Trafford was so unremarkable it was easy to forget the key piece of news he dropped in at the very start.
Before some terse, monosyllabic and generally disinterested musings - along with a theatrical sigh and eye roll to accompany the now staple question about Manchester City not having a number nine - Guardiola said Kyle Walker might not be fit to face Manchester United.
As far as derby eve alarms go, that’s one to make you sound the klaxons. England defender Walker is in the form of his career and one of Guardiola’s most dependable performers.
He relishes the added physicality that derby day brings and also offers City vital insurance against their neighbours’ threat on the break if, as expected, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men sit deep in an attempt to avoid the humiliation Liverpool wrought upon them a fortnight ago.
If Walker was to miss out, he would join the suspended Aymeric Laporte on the sidelines, robbing Guardiola of half of his first-choice back four this season.
But even apparently seismic injury updates tend not to raise a pulse around City nowadays. Look at the past two Premier League title-winning campaigns in 2018/19 and 2020/21, when Kevin De Bruyne missed significant chunks of action and Guardiola’s team sailed on serenely without the division’s best player.
If Walker is out tomorrow, Joao Cancelo will simply slot in at right-back - his natural position, from where he could easily be the standout Portugal international on display in a game packed with them.
In turn, the ever-dependable Oleksandr Zinchenko would slot in at left-back, giving the back four some of the balance it might otherwise lack with Laporte unavailable.
The Spain centre-back will be replaced by John Stones, meaning he and Ruben Dias can pick up from where they left off last season as the best shot-blocking, show-stopping, high-fiving defensive duo in town.
These are the sort of long-term benefits you reap from having a settled, carefully constructed squad and an established playing style.
United also have one-and-a-half absentees in their backline heading into Saturday but they threaten to throw Solskjaer’s plans into chaos.
After the Liverpool debacle, three centre-backs was definitely the way to go and Raphael Varane was particularly impressive as United’s 5-3-2 shackled an abject Tottenham.
Definitely, 5-3-2 all the way. Until Varane got injured against Atalanta and was replaced by… Mason Greenwood.
Former Real Madrid man Varane is out of the derby and Victor Lindelof might not make it, meaning United do not have the requisite number of first-team central defenders to fill out their go-to formation of the past five minutes.
Before City fans get too excited, don’t expect a derby day return from Phil Jones. After all, United have Eric Bailly - their standout performer in Bergamo, who a couple of weeks earlier was left out in favour of a woefully unfit Harry Maguire.
Against his former club, Maguire had a nightmare outing from which he still appears to be piecing things back together.
Of course, none of this means there are any guarantees Cristiano Ronaldo won’t be running off yelping into the autumn air with his torso on display in the 97th minute.
But the serenity with which City are able to approach any matchday setback is part of the reason why they are in contention for major honours every single year.
The contrast with potential crises lurking in every training session at Carrington is a damning indictment of United’s scattergun approach to the past decade - an approach that explains theirs and City's trajectories irrespective of where Saturday's bragging rights fall.
Who do you think will come out on top on derby day? Follow the City Is Ours editor Dom Farrell on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
