It’s all change at Manchester City this summer. Pep Guardiola’s arrival has spelled out that change very clearly to some members of Manchester City’s squad, with lots of new faces, and lots of old faces falling down the pecking order.
Indeed, not even club legends like Joe Hart have been spared the Pep Guardiola axe. The England stopper is now on loan at Torino after the arrival in Manchester of Claudio Bravo.
It may not match the arrival of Guardiola, but we’ve teamed up with 7 Of The Best to bring you a footballing treat for the season. It’s free to play and the best team each week wins £1,500, as well as monthly prize of £4,000 for the best individual. Want to win bigger? Nab yourself a whopping £500k if you get all seven of your selections correct for seven consecutive weeks.
So in that spirit, here are seven players Manchester City could probably have been doing with shipping out – permanently – this summer.
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Yaya Toure
Just like Joe Hart, Yaya Toure is something of a club legend. The man who City could always count on to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and get them over the line is now ageing and this perhaps has something to do with why Pep Guardiola hasn’t yet picked him in his side.
But perhaps the only thing worse than a scorned player is a sulky scorned player, and it feels like Toure could be just that. Perhaps, then, it might have been best to actually get rid of Toure rather than keeping him around the club.
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Wilfried Bony
Wilfried Bony cost Manchester City £28m not that long ago. Now he’s on loan at Stoke City. As a football club, that’s not a business model that you can follow for very long.
And although Bony was surplus to requirements at a new-look City this season, perhaps actually trying to recoup some of the money they paid for him in the first place might have been a good place to start for City rather than letting him leave on loan – though if he does hit form again potentially Bony will fetch more money next summer.
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Fernando
Fernando represents a different option for City in the midfield. He’s a typical anchor man, sitting in front of the defence and not really moving.
But even though that’s not really a type of player Pep Guardiola seems to need in the system he’s currently playing at City, Fernando has also proved in the past that he can be something of a liability at the club – he’s caught in possession too much for a player who is supposed to be protecting the defence, and in a team seeing as much of the ball as Guardiola’s City that could be a recipe for disaster.
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Jesus Navas
Lots of City fans were left wondering how deadline day could see Samir Nasri and Joe Hart leave the club but Jesus Navas could still get a game under Guardiola.
Navas runs fast and is a hard worker, but that seems to be the peak of his game. Not much of a crosser, not much of a finisher and the kind of winger who hits the first man with an alarming regularity, Navas is a corner-winner extraordinaire, but not much else!
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Nicolas Otamendi
Eliaquim Mangala left Manchester City on loan on deadline day, but some good performances for Valencia this season could potentially see him realise some of the promise that saw City pay big money for him in 2014.
It does seem as though City have shipped out the wrong defender, though, with Otamendi three years and a day older but every bit as reckless.
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Aleksandar Kolarov
Although Aleks Kolarov seems to have been favoured massively by Pep Guardiola since his arrival, his performances last season really don’t justify that.
Kolarov is a talented player who is great going forward and has a terrific left foot, but it does seem somewhat strange that he’s being deployed as a centre back given that the defensive side to his game has usually been where he was found wanting.
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Bacary Sagna
Bacary Sagna was signed from Arsenal on a free transfer and predominantly supposed to be a backup to Pablo Zabaleta.
Sagna’s performances last season, though, were quite encouraging, but in a new City system where full backs tend to play inside almost as defensive midfielders when City are in possession of the ball, it seems strange to stick with Sagna.
Perhaps Guardiola could have made an executive decision to get rid of the Frenchman and find a better ball-playing full back for that position.
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