Last season was one to forget for Manchester City. Few would have expected City who started last season as treble winners and who seemingly were on top of the world to end the campaign without a single trophy. The Cityzens also had the world’s best player in their squad at the time in Rodri who won the Ballon d’Or.
Pep Guardiola who has won everything that there is to win with City was touted by many to leave the club at the end of last season and then embark on a much needed break from the game, however the struggles of the team prompted the Spaniard to stay a bit longer to try and rebuild his team into the giants that they once were. City were figured out and were also impacted by the loss of Rodri who had to miss a large part of last season through injury. They were never in the title race and spent much of the past season trying to cement a place in the top four rather than win the title. To make matters worse for City, they would have thought that they could salvage some pride and win the FA Cup last season but ended up being upset in the final by Crystal Palace whom they lost 1-0 to at Wembley.
There will be plenty of eyes on City this season. Some will expect an instant response from Guardiola’s charges. City have certainly shown that they are going all-out to try and rebuild which has included making hard decisions. The club released arguably its greatest ever player Kevin De Bruyne prior to this season in a move that was surprising.
De Bruyne, a two time Premier League Player of the Season and six time league winner has since joined Napoli. His career was expected to be poetic and end at City but it was not to be. City have brought in Rayan Cherki (21) and Tijjani Reijnders (27) to fill the void left by De Bruyne. Reijnders is at the peak of his powers but is arguably not as naturally gifted to produce the dynamic performances of De Bruyne. Cherki is a world-class talent in the making but at 21, is a bit raw and might need more time to eventually come into his own and shine at the Etihad Stadium, maybe the first season at his new club will be about adapting for the Lyon born player.
City do have the best striker in the league in Erling Haaland but the Norway international needs his midfield to deliver him good service if he is to bang in the goals which lead them to trophies again. Haaland will be assisted and given competition by Omar Marmoush, who is the best talent to have come out of Egypt since Mohamed Salah.
City will deliver some good performances during the upcoming season but defending champions Liverpool will be the favourites to go on and claim the title for a second consecutive season under Arne Slot, with SportyTilt also predicting LFC as winners. Liverpool’s advantage is that their core group are mainly at the prime of their powers, with the evergreen Salah again expected to score a lot of goals. Hugo Ekitike has also been brought in as an understudy to Salah and could end up being his long-term successor.
Rebuilding processes are not straightforward as was Guardiola’s first season in charge of City as the club finished third. City may be improved compared to what they were last season but they may struggle to challenge Liverpool.