Only West Ham and Everton have fielded older Premier League starting XIs than Man City this season
Pep Guardiola was contemplating the future. Not a fifth successive Premier League title. Because, as he accepted, when a team is in run like Manchester City’s, they need one win before they can aim for bigger targets. But a manager who signed a two-year contract extension last week was looking into the longer term.
And, more than ever before, he accepted that it involves a rebuild. Guardiola committed himself to it, and not merely by putting pen to paper. He cited the reality that, six months ago, City were crowned champions, FA Cup finalists, a side only knocked out of the Champions League on penalties by Real Madrid. “But the football life changed in one thing and another,” he added.
Guardiola’s has changed with five defeats and a draw in a match City had been winning 3-0. He has a cut to his nose, a dent to his pride, but also an argument that the unusual element was not City’s recent slide but how long they sustained success. But if it has exposed the need for an overhaul, it is instructive Guardiola has admitted it and suggested he wants to shape a new side.
“I don’t want to run away,” he said. “I want to be there. I want to rebuild the team in many aspects from now on until the end of the season, the next season, to try to continue up there. I ask for that challenge, I would say. I ask for this opportunity to do it. Because I feel it. I know what I want to do. I know what we need. I know what we have to do.
“Knowing that in that moment, our consistency that we had, obviously we don’t have it right now. But which team around the world in 10 years is consistent during 10 years? Tell me once. It doesn’t exist. Not even in NBA, not even in tennis, not even in golf, not even in any sport. In a decade of time, like we have been here almost a decade, be consistent. We have done. You don’t find it. I’m sorry. We don’t find it. It’s not nice to live it. Of course it’s not nice. But what do you expect? That everything is red carpet, that everything is nice and everything is easy?
“But that proves how we are as sportsmen, as competitors. It’s easy when you have [won] 10, 12 games in a row and everybody is fit and everybody is in his prime and everything is the best age: 26, 27, 28. Everything is running well. Yeah, everything is a compliment. That is easy. No, no. I have to prove myself now. So it’s not an excuse. Rodri is not there. What do you have to do? Cry all the time because Rodri is not there? Or because the four central defenders have not been there for a long time in the last month? I have to find a solution.”
There was quite a bit to unpick in it. It contained an acknowledgement that City are ageing. Rather than everyone being 26, 27 or 28, only three of Guardiola’s charges are: the injured Rodri, plus Ruben Dias and Matheus Nunes. But City have 12 players in their squad aged 29 or over, nine of them in their 30s. Only West Ham’s Julen Lopetegui and Everton’s Sean Dyche have named an older Premier League starting XI than Guardiola this season. Of the 14 players used in Saturday’s 4-0 defeat to Tottenham, nine are at least 29. They have started to look older and slower: perhaps Kyle Walker’s pace is going, while Ilkay Gundogan lacked the running power required against a younger Spurs side.
Ilkay Gundogan and Kyle Walker are two of Pep Guardiola's older charges
Ilkay Gundogan and Kyle Walker are two of Pep Guardiola's older charges (Getty Images)
In the last two summers, City have postponed much of the rebuild; two of the six recruits in that time are now in the band of 30-somethings. And while Guardiola said it was harder to be stable defensively without a quartet of centre backs and two holding midfielders, arguably he only has one: Mateo Kovacic does not covet that role.
Perhaps Guardiola was arguing City merited more credit for their run of six titles in seven years: not as long as those of Bayern Munich, Juventus and Celtic in other leagues in the recent past, but possibly in a more competitive league. The only off-year in that time came in 2019/20 when the combination of Aymeric Laporte’s injury and Vincent Kompany’s departure left City short of centre backs. Now there may be another hole at the heart of the side. If the off-year five seasons ago is mentioned less often now, it is because City otherwise handled the transition well: signing Rodri in 2019 and Dias in 2020 to install cornerstones, parting company with senior citizens David Silva and Nicolas Otamendi, phasing out Fernandinho and then Sergio Aguero. It was evolution, not revolution.
Now a bigger rebuild may beckon. The challenge Guardiola wants may be to move on from Walker, Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne; change may have to be fast-tracked in midfield, factoring in the ages of Bernardo Silva and Kovacic, but Guardiola faces another issue at centre back, with John Stones, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji born within 14 months of each other. City may not be able to afford a situation where they age and decline together.
It may not be the time for the red-carpet treatment. If Guardiola first looks to find a solution with his existing players – “the squad is really good but we don’t have the squad,” he said – then a rebuild has to involve looking beyond some. To players whose prime lies in the future, who will one day be 26, 27 and 28.