We started season with the following back4 -> Walker John Ruben Cancelo..
Why this was important -> For example Arsenal has White-Gabriel-Saliba-Zinchy back4..
Since Pep arrived, he modernised football and it's like standard today.. One fullback plays higher, 3 defenders stay back and etc. Every big team plays like that, for example Newcastle: Trippier-CB-Botman-Burn.. Tripper plays higher, other ones stay back.. Arsenal: Zinchy plays higher, other ones stay back.. So it's similar pattern in every big club..
Why City had an advantage:
1) Cancelo was like a Winger and is one of the best players for that role. TAA, Trippier, Zinchy and etc. are great players, but Cancelo was at least one of them, or even better.
2) Kyle FUCKING Walker -> White is centre-back, Burn is centre-back, so if we analyse other teams they don't have such option. That third player is either classic fullback (Robertson, AWB, Cucurella / Chilwell and etc.) or classic centre-back (Burn / White / etc.).. Walker is the player who is classic fullback and can play that centre-back position better than above mentioned classic fullbacks.
3) Last season we even had Zinchy and Pep could use Zinchy to help midfield more, use Cancelo to help Wingers / Attackers more..
So that was our advantage and that was what made us champions - in addition to other ones.. This was one of the main fundaments of our team..
Right now this options are limited.. 1) Zinchy gone 2) Cancelo gone..
So we have Rico and Gomes.. Both of them can play like Zinchy, help midfield but Zinchy right now is waaaay better than Rico and Gomes and it will take a lot of time to improve them. Plus Rico isn't LB, which means that if we play Rico, than we can't use Walker - which isn't even an option. If you play Gomes, you have poor man's Zinchenko :D
On the other hand if you play Rico + Jonn / Ruben / Laporte - Arsenal Back4 is still better and has an edge or at least we are not having an advantage.
Cause Zinchy > Rico and John / Ruben / Laporte > White / Gabriel / Saliba..
So that's why Pep tried yesterday Bernado as a LB and he may start experimenting a lot, due to reason that we are out of options and we need to find that advantage, we had last year and year before that..
Loaning Cancelo out was the worst decision, considering we didn't even have replacements. If Zinchy had stayed than OK, but at first selling Ziinchy and than Cancelo, it was a big damage for the club and its advantage against the other clubs..