I have a feeling all three will play against Arsenal. Man City have a history of players pulling out of internationals, to then miraculously recover for their club shortly after.
Arsenal are doing the same though, Saka pulled out of England camp and Gabriel is supposedly not fit to play for Brazil. Let’s see if they are all really injured at the weekend.
It's a common tactic not only limited to Man City or Arsenal. No clubs are happy to let their key players play friendlies in their national teams and risk fatigue and/or injuries. Especially when both of the mentioned clubs are still participating in the Champions League quarter-finals as well as are still fighting for the league title and will be playing against each other on Sunday.
Tensions between national and club management are as old as football.
For critical matches, the risk of injury is the worst possible scenario when players play in national teams. That's why I agree that the mentioned teams do not want to send the players. Would you want your most important player to go to the national team and come back injured? Of course, this may not happen, but if it does, it will cause big problems.
If these players were facing minor injuries, that's not a problem, but since some players must go out for months, it costs the club a lot. That's why I recall that a national match has many disadvantages for the club compared to the national club itself.
The players went to the national club healthy, but they returned to the club with serious injuries, and they must have been out for months, which also caused the club to lose the trophy. I'll take Manchester City as the best cast to explain why sending players to the international team will be able to give the city big losses.
Having some players who played at the national clubs is good since it shows that some players have been valued so highly by their national teams. The only problem is when the players are injured, and it's the responsibility of the team to recover their important players who were injured due to the national match.
Im not fully cons about this but sometimes, preventing the players to join in the national club is good when team must have faced some very important matches this season.
Manchester city has lost RB and CB which are very bad for the club. These players have contributed a lot to ensure the city always has a strong defensive line. What we can take from city's case if sometimes coach needs to prevent their players.