João Cancelo has hit the ground running at Barcelona, helping the Blaugrana record consecutive victories in the last week. The Portugual international scored the winning goal for the reigning La Liga champions in their 3-2 win over Celta Vigo on Saturday.
Journalist Oriol Domènech has discussed why Cancelo fell out of favour under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City when speaking on Catalunya Ràdio (via AS) on Saturday.
On 14 January, City lost 2-1 to Manchester United in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford and Guardiola saw something that day that he didn’t agree with.
In the following games, one of the decisions he made was to leave Cancelo out of his starting eleven and play Rico Lewis in his place.
City beat Tottenham 4-2 as well as Wolves, with Lewis in the side, and in the FA Cup fourth-round tie against Arsenal, Guardiola continued to leave Cancelo out.
When the player discussed the issue he had with Guardiola’s decision-making with some City team-mates, the Catalan coach spoke to Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano and asked them to move Cancelo on.
The attacking wing-back would eventually leave the Etihad, joining Bayern Munich on loan and he is now helping Barça as they look to continue their winning run in games against Mallorca and Sevilla this week.
Kieran Quaile | GSFN
