Premier League offers Man City help amid Champions League trouble

Manchester City could really do with a break.

They won't get the sunny trip to Saudi Arabia they got last December to forget their Premier League troubles and return with a reset and a gold badge for their shirts to signal their new status as world champions. And they won't get the winter break any more that the Premier League briefly introduced to help combat fixture fatigue.

After a few days to get over their bruising 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace that extended their recent slump to just one victory in their last nine games, Pep Guardiola and his players must switch back on instantly for a Champions League trip to Turin where they really cannot afford to lose to Juventus. Seventeenth in the giant league table with more worries about tumbling out of the top 24 entirely than qualifying automatically for the knockout stages as one of the eighth best teams, anything but three points will reduce the control they have over their destiny.

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A Manchester derby four days later does not sound an ideal week, but Ruben Amorim's side managed to have a worse weekend than the Blues with the team and club in Trafford plunging themselves into further disarray. After that, the schedule clears up with six whole days before they head to Aston Villa and a festive fixture list that could have been much worse.

After Juventus, City have a run of five Premier League fixtures before they next play in a different competition. As things stand, the current position of those teams is 13th, 6th, 15th, 16th, and 14th.

That doesn't guarantee City any points - Crystal Palace are 16th after taking two points off the Blues at the weekend - but it is a significantly kinder run than it could have been. Guardiola will hope that his squad are in better shape when the Blues have a run of five league games in February that reads Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool and Tottenham.

Even just having a week between the United and Villa matches should make a difference. With players battling through injuries or coming back early from them, it is far easier to manage the body to play one game in a week than two.

After travelling to Villa at lunchtime on the 21st, City are next in action on the 26th before a trip to Leicester on the 29th and a home game against West Ham on January 4th. Including the derby, that is five matches against a team with an average rank of 13th in the league spread over four weeks and with minimal travel.

Not much may be going in City's favour and there is increasing jeopardy in the Champions League, but the Premier League fixture list looks kind to them for the next block of matches.