There's no such thing as a guarantee life, only educated guesses you hope will turn out to be correct. Livramento is a first choice full back for a CL team. He's a talented 22 year old & a full England international. In this respect he ticks all the boxes, plus he helps our HG quota, & you call him a "prospect"?
No one's saying he's the best RB in the UK, Europe or the world. As things stand & for what City need right now, I can't think of a better option.
You mention Nunes & Lewis. Nunes has done enough to earn a reprieve imo, but I don't believe a midfielder who Pep said didn't have the intelligence to play in his specialist position, should be our best option to rely upon "to do a job" for the season.
No doubt Nunes "can do a job" against mid-lower table opposition & against low ranking teams in the CL. However, when faced with elite opposition, that's when he'll probably be found out as we've seen.
We're Manchester City, & I've had enough of Pep's small squad "can do a job" philosophy, especially as on the other hand he constantly complains about the increasing game time demands being placed on footballers. He can't have it both ways.
When you factor in the faster, & more physical way football has changed recently, it comes as no surprise that our small, elite but ageing squad creaked, broke & spluttered to a grinding halt last season.
Lewis is a decent young RB who at 20 has years ahead of him. He's disadvantaged because of his diminutive size, hence him sometimes struggling against big units who know they can push him around.
From the evidence I've seen, Lewis' future is in midfield where his intelligence on the ball excels. He can also "do a job" at RB against mid-lower league opposition, but against the elite, he like Nunes will struggle.
Both Stones & Akanji "can do a job" at RB if pressed into action. However, both are part of our ageing elite, neither are specialist RB's, & both have had recent injury problems, Stones in particular.
We also need to clear the decks. Our squad is bloated & Pep has repeatedly expressed his preference for a small elite squad. Conversely & more importantly, during one of Bernardo's first interviews as captain during the CWC, he said the players preferred having a bigger squad as it gives everyone time to play, rotate & rest.
Something is at odds here, as there's no way Bernardo said that in public, if it's not how the squad feel internally.
We spent significant sums during the winter window & this one, on bringing in younger reinforcements, only for reports to emerge over the last 48 hours that "the club" (probably Pep) feels that changing the squad too much isn't for the best.
With that being the case, why spend what we have (which bloated the squad), to only then look to loan out the new younger players, who were mostly playing first team football before they arrived? This doesn't come across as City looking to the future. It smacks of the here & now, & Pep thinking of the next two years of his contract & not City's long-term future.
As for Livramento, I don't look at him as an £80m "prospect". I see him as a very highly rated £8m per season Etihad mainstay, over the next decade or so. That is how best to view a long-term investment, much like people do with getting a mortgage to buy a house.
As for the squad & how things stand regarding Livramento or buying a foreign RB to fill a gaping hole in our squad, I agree with the following video I watched yesterday. Many seasoned City fans are concerned about our right back situation, & with good reason too IMHO...
