Leeds United may want to pursue summer targets from Premier League rivals this summer, and Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has suggested he could trim his squad.
Heading into the Premier League, Leeds face the daunting prospect of trying to match the quality of some of the world’s elite sides over 38 games.
Manchester City are one of those, and as Omar Marmoush unleashed a thunderbolt from 40-ish yards to help them to 3-1 victory over Bournemouth, Pep Guardiola made an intriguing comment on the shape of his squad going into next season, claiming he desires a small squad to manage:
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“I said to the club I don’t want that [a bigger squad],” Guardiola said, via Sky Sports. “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, I will stay.
“It’s impossible for my soul to [tell] my players in the tribune that they cannot play.
“Now it happened to add players immediately. Maybe for three or four months we couldn’t select 11 players, we didn’t have defenders, 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, six, stay in Manchester at home because they cannot play. This is not going to happen. I said to the club I don’t want that.”
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Could Leeds United take advantage of Pep Guardiola’s Man City squad vow?
Based on Guardiola’s comments, there are going to be players subject to summer reviews at the Etihad, considering their own futures while the manager himself feels the need to let them leave to better their own careers.
(Photo by Neal Simpson/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
Should Leeds wish to rebuild their squad with enough quality to hold their own in the Premier League, Guardiola’s comments may be worth looking into.
Despite dropping off significantly this season, the depths of the Man City squad still have vast amounts of quality capable of starting week in, week out for other sides in the top flight.
Player Minutes played Games played Games started Minutes per game
James McAtee 936 27 9 34.67
Oscar Bobb* 104 4 1 26
Stefan Ortega 1819 21 20 86.61
Claudio Echeverri 14 1 0 14
Vitor Reis 136 3 2 45.3
*Bobb has been recovering from a broken leg this season, making his return in April.
Given the need for Leeds to reinforce their squad to a top flight standard, there may be opportunity for Leeds to take up Guardiola’s comments with an ambitious plot to offer game time to players in need of it.
McAtee has been linked away from the Etihad virtually every week this season and Leeds would join an incredibly long list of clubs that would gladly sign him, but they would be able to offer him a guaranteed starting spot and chance to develop as one of the main players in attack, something other more established clubs may not.
Bobb is heading into the next phase of rehab this summer where he needs to build up his minutes, unlikely to do so at Man City as they replace Kevin De Bruyne, while Echeverri and Reis could do with loan exposure – two players in positions that Leeds require further depth.
As for Ortega, the 32-year-old would justifiably see himself above a newly-promoted side, but you could have argued Bernd Leno would have as well, but he opted to join Fulham in the summer of 2022 and hasn’t looked back.