4 new stars 

©TM/IMAGO

If there was any doubt surrounding the severity of Manchester City’s poor form this season, it was undoubtedly underlined by the club’s activity in the January transfer window. Over the course of January, the Premier League champions spent no less than €218 million on new signings – not only the highest amount for any club in the English top-flight, but comfortably more than any other club around the world. So much so that the money spent on bolstering Pep Guardiola’s misfiring squad made up around 46% of the total money spent by all Premier League clubs in the window. So who have Man City signed and will their new recruits be able to help them turn their season around? 

A one-man attack that continues to falter

While there are many facets to Man City’s problems in the Premier League this season, there’s little doubt that the club’s inability to create and score goals has been one of their biggest issues this season. Although Guardiola’s team have scored just one fewer goal than Arsenal in the league campaign, the manner in which they have scored them has been the crux of the issue. Of the 48 goals scored to date, 21 have been scored by star striker Erling Haaland. When we add his two assists to that tally, it means the Norwegian striker has either scored or directly set up 44% of his team’s league goals this season. And as we can see in the graph below, he’s the only player in Man City’s squad to reach double figures for goal contributions in the league this season. 

That means that when Haaland doesn’t score, Man City tend to drop points. So much so that in the last 10 league games in which Haaland didn’t find the back of the net, Guardiola’s side have won just three, drawn two and lost five. As such, the club clearly felt a need to address this problem by bringing in new players to replace the underperforming supporting cast. The most obvious of which was undoubtedly Omar Marmoush, who joined Man City from Eintracht Frankfurt for €75m. At his former club, the Egyptian star bagged an incredible 15 goals and 10 assists and has been signed to slot in behind Haaland as the second striker in Guardiola’s set up. That should hopefully alleviate some of the pressure on the towering striker and make up for the poor goal contributions from the likes of Savinho, Phil Foden and Jérémy Doku.  

The club also made an interesting deadline day signing in central midfielder Nico González from Porto for a further €60m and there’s little doubt that he’ll also be tasked with providing extra support in the final third. Prior to his move to England, González was averaging 0.49 goals and assists per 90 for the Portuguese giants, which is far more impressive than the averages İlkay Gündoğan (0.14 per 90), Bernardo Silva (0.25 per 90) and Mateo Kovacic (0.27 per 90) have so far managed this season. While the absence of Rodri in the middle of the pitch has been well documented, another player whose demise from the starting XI has gone largely overlooked has been that of Kevin de Bruyne, who has started just seven league games since the start of December. Last season an impressive campaign from Foden masked De Bruyne’s absence, but with the England international now out of form, Guardiola has had no ready-made playmakers to rely upon. This, in theory, is where González should be able to lend a helping hand and perhaps get Man City’s attack back into fighting shape. 

A porous defence needing plugged 

Unfortunately for Guardiola this season, his problems down one end of the pitch seem to be as severe as the ones up the other end too. And, alongside a misfiring attack, Man City have been consistently let down by errors and mistakes from their back-line for much of the league campaign. Whether it be injuries to Rúben Dias, Nathan Aké and Ederson or the plummeting form of Kyle Walker before he departed the club for AC Milan in the January transfer window, Guardiola’s once-proud defensive line has crumbled thi season and been in desperate need of new recruits. This is all too evident when we consider the club’s defensive record in the Premier League, which stands at a truly alarming average of 1.5 goals conceded per game. As we can see in the graph above, that’s almost twice what the club typically averaged in the two prior campaigns and is more than double what they averaged in the 21/22 season. 

Man City looked to address this issue by spending no less than €77m on two central defenders in the form of Vitor Reis from Palmeiras and Abdukodir Khusanov from Lens. Interestingly, while both players are under the age of 21 and likely to be thrown straight into the first team, they could form the foundations for a new defensive unit going forward. For example, in Khusanov the club have signed a strong defender that should find little issue rising to the physical demands of the Premier League, while Reis’ qualities lie in his speed and technical ability. As such, Guardiola has managed to bring in two different profiles of central defenders that are ready to start – in the case of Khusanov already have – for his team if or when the Man City manager’s patience runs out for the likes of Manuel Akanji or John Stones. Following the heavy 5-1 defeat to Arsenal on Sunday, we may see both young defenders starting for Man City before too long. And it may just be exactly what the club’s defence needs to get back on its feet in 2025.