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Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Why guiding Man City's shattered stars through a crazy summer is Pep Guardiola's biggest challenge yet, writes IAN LADYMAN
The good news for Pep Guardiola and Manchester City is that the most difficult season of the great Catalan's nine in charge is at an end. Less encouraging is that the next one starts in less than three weeks. It is to Guardiola's credit a Premier League title defence that was effectively over by new year has reached its conclusion with Champions League football assured for next season. To win two consecutive league games in the wake of their abject performance in the FA Cup final says something for a tenacity and competitive spirit that clearly endures at the Etihad Stadium, at a time when so much of what was previously taken for granted has fallen away. Equally, City's problems are many and have not disappeared. And now their participation in the inaugural Club World Cup in the USA looms large. For Guardiola, to ease City through that while trying to fix what is broken and bring fresh blood to a squad that desperately needs it presents his greatest challenge since his difficult first year in English football in 2016-17. To watch City's players after their Wembley defeat by Crystal Palace 10 days ago was instructive. Losing teams are usually up the road as soon as they can change out of their strips on Cup final day, but not this time. Pep Guardiola is preparing to guide Manchester City through a crucial summer window A number of Man City's stars have faced challenges throughout the 2024-25 campaign No, members of Guardiola's squad stood and poured out their souls in what can only be described as some kind of group confessional. Kevin De Bruyne indicated that he would not be going to America. Bernardo Silva accused some team-mates of lacking commitment to the cause. Phil Foden spoke of a need to find physical and emotional rest. Foden, in subsequently talking to England manager Thomas Tuchel, has claimed his words were misconstrued. The truth is that he could not have been clearer. Foden, a Treble winner and last year's double Player of the Year, indicated quite clearly that he needed a summer off. The truth is that they all do, but they will not get it. De Bruyne is on his way to Napoli on a free while doubt hangs over the futures of players such as Jack Grealish and Silva. Agents speak privately of most of the City squad being for sale if the price is right and it remains likely that the team who start next season — only a month after the Club World Cup is due to end — will be all but unrecognisable from the one that started this campaign with a straightforward 2-0 win at Chelsea in August. City have looked like imposters in blue for much of this season, while Guardiola has far too often looked like a manager running short of ideas about how to fix his broken machine. City's main problem has been clear — they have, relatively speaking, forgotten how to score goals. They managed 72 across the league campaign, which was still bettered only by Liverpool but was way down on previous numbers that have made them so irresistibly powerful. Last season, for example, City scored 96 goals, while in the previous two they managed 94 and 99. Never before under Guardiola have City scored fewer than 80 while twice, in 2018 and 2020, they breached the 100 mark. City have looked like imposters in blue for much of this season, while Guardiola has far too often looked like a manager running short of ideas City have bid farewell to long-serving midfielder Kevin De Bruyne in their final league game One only has to watch them to see how blunt and confused they have become, all decisiveness gone. And while those who talk of Guardiola ruining creative players such as Grealish clearly have very short memories, it is undoubtedly the case that something on the City circuit board has fused. Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan and Silva all look beyond help. But how does Guardiola, who has talked of a need for a smaller squad, get players of their standing and salary out of the door? Where do they go and who can afford to pay them? Players such as Jeremy Doku, Savinho and Omar Marmoush are already in the City system. They are part of the next wave. But City will recruit further over the coming weeks — as their interest in Liverpool-bound Florian Wirtz and Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White indicates — and that will leave Guardiola with a new-look squad that simply has to fire. He may, incidentally, also have a new goalkeeper by the time the summer is out. How Guardiola approaches the Club World Cup with all this in the background will be fascinating. The prize money is enormous, with the winners expected to accrue in the region of £100million. But at what personal and human cost? City will recruit further over the coming weeks as they look to bounce back from last season Guardiola has already spoken of inviting the players' wives and girlfriends to America and has said he will take his golf clubs. The messaging is clear. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine City giving it anything less than their all once they have moved past palatable opening group fixtures against opposition from Morocco and the UAE to face Juventus in game three. Pre-season — such as it is — will subsequently be lighter, of course. Equally, players required to go the full course and distance in America are likely to be working themselves back from a late summer break when the new season starts. City's fall from the summit has been swift and dramatic. Their return is littered with obstacles and may take longer.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Pep Guardiola vows to walk away from Man City unless one condition is met
Pep Guardiola has claimed he will quit Manchester City if they have such a big squad next season. Guardiola is urging his bosses at the Etihad Stadium to get rid of some players so he has fewer at his disposal next year and he said – albeit in a threat he is unlikely to carry out – that he would resign if he had such a large group again. The City manager had to tell Savinho, Abdukodir Khusanov, Claudio Echeverri, Rico Lewis and James McAtee they were not even on the bench for Tuesday's 3-1 win over Bournemouth, just as the two locals were omitted from the matchday 20 for the FA Cup final. Guardiola made four signings in the winter window, after injuries led him to conclude that he had too few players but now he believes he has too many and, while Kevin de Bruyne is guaranteed to leave, the others are all contracted to City next season – leading the manager to say he wants some to go. 'I said to the club I don't want that [a bigger squad],' he explained. 'I don't want to leave five or six players in the freezer. I don't want that. I will quit. 'Make a shorter squad and I will stay. It's impossible for my soul to give my players [a place] in the tribune that they cannot play. Now it happened to add players immediately. 'Maybe for three-to-four months we couldn't select 11 players, we didn't have defenders and it was so difficult. After people come back but next season it cannot be like that. 'As a manager I cannot train 24 players and every time I select I have to have four, five or six staying in Manchester at home because they cannot play. This is not going to happen. I said to the club that I don't want that.' Guardiola added that he could not 'sustain for the emotion of the club' to have a squad of that size as he felt the team needed to 'create another connection with each other' in a smaller group, supplemented by academy players. He said: 'It is a question for the club. I don't want to have 24, 25, 26 players when everyone is fit. It is a headache. Yesterday I spent more than 45 minutes with six players. Not one or two, six players were at home. I don't like that.'
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Pep Guardiola vows to walk away from Man City unless one condition is met
Pep Guardiola has claimed he will quit Manchester City if they have such a big squad next season. Guardiola is urging his bosses at the Etihad Stadium to get rid of some players so he has fewer at his disposal next year and he said – albeit in a threat he is unlikely to carry out – that he would resign if he had such a large group again. Advertisement The City manager had to tell Savinho, Abdukodir Khusanov, Claudio Echeverri, Rico Lewis and James McAtee they were not even on the bench for Tuesday's 3-1 win over Bournemouth, just as the two locals were omitted from the matchday 20 for the FA Cup final. Guardiola made four signings in the winter window, after injuries led him to conclude that he had too few players but now he believes he has too many and, while Kevin de Bruyne is guaranteed to leave, the others are all contracted to City next season – leading the manager to say he wants some to go. 'I said to the club I don't want that [a bigger squad],' he explained. 'I don't want to leave five or six players in the freezer. I don't want that. I will quit. 'Make a shorter squad and I will stay. It's impossible for my soul to give my players [a place] in the tribune that they cannot play. Now it happened to add players immediately. Advertisement 'Maybe for three-to-four months we couldn't select 11 players, we didn't have defenders and it was so difficult. After people come back but next season it cannot be like that. 'As a manager I cannot train 24 players and every time I select I have to have four, five or six staying in Manchester at home because they cannot play. This is not going to happen. I said to the club that I don't want that.' Pep Guardiola says he could not bear to leave 'five or six players in the freezer' (PA Wire) Guardiola added that he could not 'sustain for the emotion of the club' to have a squad of that size as he felt the team needed to 'create another connection with each other' in a smaller group, supplemented by academy players. He said: 'It is a question for the club. I don't want to have 24, 25, 26 players when everyone is fit. It is a headache. Yesterday I spent more than 45 minutes with six players. Not one or two, six players were at home. I don't like that.'
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Manchester City's bloated squad leaves Pep Guardiola facing tough transfer choices
Pep Guardiola isn't quitting. He wasn't in the worst run of results in his managerial career and he won't, even if Manchester City fail to get the point on Sunday that would earn them a 15th successive season in the Champions League. He won't, despite his rather exaggerated choice of words on Tuesday when he said the size of his squad would make him walk away. Guardiola being Guardiola, he was complaining he had too many players, not too few. But there will be departures from the Etihad Stadium this summer. Guardiola is preparing for a clearout. He has a squad of 26; too many, he says, when all bar the injured John Stones and the suspended Mateo Kovacic are available for Sunday's trip to Fulham. He has had to dispense too much bad news recently, to omit too many players from matchday squads. Advertisement 'The last three weeks or a month, [leaving] four, five, six players at home,' he said. 'That is not healthy; for any of us, for them especially, for the club, me, anyone. The club knows it and the club completely agrees with me, so we're going to find the best way for all of us.' Pep Guardiola will need to get rid of several squad players (PA Wire) Which means players leaving and so far, only Kevin De Bruyne definitely is. Whereas, in theory, anyway, their group will be two bigger when two players return from loans, even if Kalvin Phillips hardly has a future at the Etihad Stadium. Kyle Walker may not, either, even if that could partly be from choice. But if City want to bring in, say, three signings, that could necessitate a cull: perhaps three in would mean eight out, including the unwanted Phillips. Certainly there is scope for a creative attacking midfielder to take over some of De Bruyne's duties. If Walker does not return and is rehabilitated, a specialist right-back would seem logical; perhaps, given the veteran's age, it makes sense to sign one even if he does come back. Perhaps, depending on where Josko Gvardiol is used, an out-and-out left-back may be wanted. Advertisement So decisions beckon for City. Informing the discarded, Guardiola argued, will not be difficult. 'Never is [it] awkward when it's honest conversations, never, ever,' he insisted. 'It belongs to the club, the club will take the conversations with the agents and players who maybe come or maybe leave.' The vulnerable include those who have slipped down the pecking order or find themselves in parts of the squad that are overstocked. It won't be Erling Haaland going; because of his nine-year contract, his 30 goals but also because there are no other specialist strikers. Nor Rodri, and not merely because of his Ballon d'Or and huge importance: the January buy Nico Gonzalez is the only other out-and-out defensive midfielder. But there are areas with a surfeit of players. Guardiola now has seven centre-backs: some of them versatile, two January signings, but surely too many. It may make sense to loan out Vitor Reis if he is nowhere near the team. Ruben Dias and Gvardiol seem the safest of all. Stones, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji, all of a certain age, all with seasons interrupted by injuries, all starters in a Champions League final two years ago, could wonder if there remains room for each. John Stones could yet be an option to be sold (Getty Images) Then there is Guardiola's battalion of wingers: not all pure wide men, but each capable of playing on one flank and, in many cases, both. Bernardo Silva could be deemed indispensable, the January arrival Omar Marmoush too, and the hope is Phil Foden can return to his best after an off-year with an ankle injury and off-field issues. That still leaves Jack Grealish, Jeremy Doku, James McAtee, Savinho, Oscar Bobb and Claudio Echeverri. Advertisement Last summer, the sense was that Bobb would have a breakthrough season, only to be sidelined. Echeverri is a recent arrival. At 22, McAtee perhaps needs to move on. Approaching his 30th birthday, after a second successive mediocre season, Grealish surely needs to. Jack Grealish's future looks incredibly uncertain (Martin Rickett/PA Wire) In the centre of midfield, Rodri's return, Nico Gonzalez's arrival, a potential De Bruyne replacement and the probability Silva's future lies in the middle could squeeze someone out. Ilkay Gundogan's new one-year deal could mean it isn't him; or would decline mean he is best served leaving? Then there is the question of the odd-job men. Rico Lewis and Nico O'Reilly may covet central roles but it does not mean they will be granted them. Matheus Nunes is the midfielder Guardiola rarely trusts to play in the centre of midfield. Get a right-back and it may make sense to let him go. A final category may be of those going by choice, when in the team. It may not apply to many, but Ederson could be an anomaly, albeit one who would then necessitate a signing. But those nearer the back of the queue are likelier departures. The theme of Guardiola's best squads is quality, not quantity: relatively small groups can still be very expensive, but underpinned by the fitness and flexibility to mean he does not need huge numbers of back-ups. 'I don't want players at home with their families when the team is playing,' Guardiola said. So that means dispensing a few unpleasant truths; to tell players their time at City is up.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Jack Grealish looks out of time at Manchester City now Guardiola has moved the goalposts
Jack Grealish is prowling. The wind tousling his hair, the ball at his feet, the way it was always meant to be. In front of him a wall of Bournemouth defenders jumpily stands guard, eyes wide like stags ready to bolt. Grealish shuffles inside, body feinting, hips dancing. You want to know what happens next. What happens next is that the referee blows for full time. It's the 97th minute; Grealish came on in the 91st. In that time Bournemouth somehow managed to score a goal. It wasn't Grealish's fault, but it did eat up most of the time in which he was hoping to make an impression. No matter. As the game ends, the cameras hunt down a treble-winning City legend making what might well be his final appearance at the Etihad Stadium. Kevin De Bruyne takes his handshakes and his tributes. Grealish slips quietly down the tunnel. Still, even this brief uncredited cameo represents progress of sorts. In City's previous three games Grealish did not even make it off the bench. In last weekend's FA Cup final, with City chasing an equaliser, he watched as Pep Guardiola brought on a 19-year-old debutant in Claudio Echeverri instead of him. Opponents against whom Grealish has played 90 minutes in 2025: Salford, Leyton Orient, Plymouth, Leicester. Over the league season as a whole Grealish has played just 22% of City's minutes. After the Bournemouth game on Tuesday night Grealish will have heard that Guardiola would rather quit City than be forced to carry on leaving players 'in the freezer', frozen out of the matchday squad. On Grealish he declared: 'He has to come back to play minutes to start to play again.' Want to play minutes, Jack? It's simple! Just play more minutes! Of course it is just possible Grealish may be able to read between the lines here. And in a way, the separation process has been taking place over years rather than weeks. Signed in the summer of 2021 for a British record £100m – and still the seventh most expensive footballer of all time – Grealish feels in retrospect increasingly like a short-term solution to a short-term need, a player signed for a team and perhaps even a game that no longer really exists. And of course the first thing that needs to be said at this point is, you know, fair enough. £100m should be buying you a generation-defining player: instead, apart from one superb season in the 2022-23 treble-winning side, Grealish never really came close to justifying the faith invested in him. A record of 12 goals and 12 assists in four Premier League seasons speaks for itself. As Guardiola put it earlier this season: 'In the end, it is about performance, delivering assists and goals.' Even so, it's instructive to go back to Grealish's first season at City, a season in which Grealish openly fretted about his lack of hard numbers and was slapped down in public by his manager for doing so. 'Always we talk about statistics,' Guardiola scolded. 'Players today play for the statistics but this is the biggest mistake they can do. We didn't buy him to score 45 goals. He has other qualities.' But of course the City team of 2021-22 was flush with goals from all areas: from Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling, Phil Foden and De Bruyne, and Gabriel Jesus and Bernardo Silva. The following season a 52-goal striker would be signed in Erling Haaland. What Guardiola demanded from Grealish was control. Control of the ball, control of tempo, progression up the pitch, acceleration, deceleration. These days, with Haaland ailing and City scrapping to reach next season's Champions League, the demands are different. Even compared with two years ago the Premier League is more dynamic, more vertical, this City less able to dominate territory than their predecessors. Whatever happens against Fulham on Sunday, City will end this season with their lowest average possession since the Manuel Pellegrini era. In this shifting landscape the capacity for a struggling side to carry a winger with no straight-line pace and no goal threat is gently receding. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion So if Guardiola subtly moved the goalposts on Grealish, perhaps it is because the goalposts also subtly moved on Guardiola. The ability to retain possession in dangerous areas has become less important than the ability to use it quickly, which is why players such as Jérémy Doku and Savinho have found themselves preferred this season. The signing of Omar Marmoush in January, a forward who operates in very similar spaces to Grealish, is another reminder of the rapidly changing nature of the job: one defined by speed, directness, thrumming momentum and getting shots off. Naturally there will be the usual mutterings about Grealish's lifestyle, but while this is a player who could probably do with getting photographed in the pub a little less, there is little evidence on the pitch to suggest that he has neglected himself, or let his physical standards drop. Rather, the tale of Grealish is a parable of how extreme wealth inequality allows the biggest clubs not just to accumulate talent but to mould it: to change its nature, to render it more immediately useful but also a little more boring, to narrow its horizons. On joining City, Grealish was forced to adjust his game radically: to focus more on recycling possession, winning fouls, eking out yards rather than unleashing the tricks and flourishes that made him so beloved at Aston Villa. These were the compromises necessary to take Grealish from the Championship to the top step of the Champions League, and he was handsomely rewarded for it too. But there is a certain irony in the fact that the Grealish of Villa between 2019 and 2021 would probably be the perfect player for City now, and yet the Grealish of City now is very much not. So despite signing Grealish for £100m there is no real pressure on City to make this signing work. Take the hit, sell him to Newcastle or Tottenham, move on without regrets. Grealish is 29 now. He has given City his peak years. And he will be bleakly aware, in more ways than one, that he never had quite as much time as he thought he did.
