From the alarmingly early point in the 2024-25 season that it became apparent Manchester City’s once-firm grip on Premier League supremacy had slipped, pundits have been debating the possible causes of the reigning champions’ slump.
Rodri’s long-term injury, of course, is a major issue. But one player’s absence alone can’t account for such a season-on-season drop-off.
Some have posited that, after nine years in charge at the Etihad, Pep Guardiola’s methods – or at least his messaging – have grown tired, or that the Catalan coach no longer stands alone at the vanguard of tactical thought.
It is almost certainly the case that several different factors have converged this season to afflict Manchester City’s title defence.
Chief among them is that they are now paying the price for a couple of years of sub-par transfer decisions.
City have spent big ever since their 2008 takeover. And more often than not in that time, they have spent well.
No team has a 100 per cent hit rate in transfer dealings, but City’s ratio was impressively high for a team who bought in such volume.
And the players they have brought in over the last three or four transfer windows have, by and large, been very good; it’s just that they have not been quite good enough to replace the elite performers who have either left the club or aged beyond their primes.
Matheus Nunes is a particularly egregious example of City whiffing with a big-money swing.
The Portuguese midfielder was a £53m signing from Wolves on the final day of the 2023 summer transfer window. He ought to have been the ideal insurance policy for a lengthy Rodri-less period, but the 26-year-old has made just 17 Premier League starts since arriving and has featured as much at full-back as in his preferred role.
But even some of City’s more successful recent signings haven’t quite reached the heights of the past stars they were acquired to usurp.
Jeremy Doku, for example, is a thrillingly gifted dribbler who is capable of terrifying full-backs.
But the Belgian winger, a £55.5m buy from Lille a week before Nunes was signed, has not been able to replicate the productivity Riyad Mahrez once provided as a wide player in Guardiola’s attack, with his figures paling in comparison even to Mahrez’s final season with the club, when he scored five league goals and registered 10 assists, let alone the former Leicester star’s peak of 20 goal contributions from 21 starts.
Another winger, the Brazilian Savinho, has impressed in spirts this season after a switch from City Group sister club Troyes following a breakout loan spell with another sister club, Girona.
But the 20-year-old does not yet possess the final-third nous and big-game ability of Bernardo Silva at his best.
And Mateo Kovacic – another player Guardiola would surely have hoped could have done a more reasonable Rodri impression – did not take the chance to assume the midfield void left by Ilkay Gundogan’s departure for Barcelona after arriving from Chelsea for £25m two summers ago, which ultimately led to the latter returning on a free transfer.
Moreover, it will alarm City fans that in light of Kevin De Bruyne’s increased injury troubles and fading form, there is no apparent heir to the 33-year-old Belgian great.
These players City have signed are all objectively very good, but they represent a qualitative drop-off from the outstanding players they have nominally replaced.
And it’s led to City being caught and even surpassed by their rivals this season.
Positive signs for the future
There are clear signs that City’s market mediocrity will be short-lived, however.
They spent big this past January both in an effort to resuscitate their failing season and restock the trophy cabinets for future campaigns. And they look to have unearthed a handful of gems.
In typical City style, no expense was spared. They splashed £173m on four first-team incomings, headlined by the £59m capture of versatile Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush from Eintracht Frankfurt, the elder statesman of the quartet at 26.
He showed what he is capable of in just his second league start by plundering a 14-minute hat-trick against Newcastle - the first of his career.
A first Manchester City hat-trick for Omar Marmoush 🔵 pic.twitter.com/INx9OM7gQy
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 16, 2025
Spanish playmaker Nico Gonzalez came in from Porto for £50m as overdue cover for – and, at age 23, a likely successor to – compatriot Rodri and he has instantly restored that missing metronomic element to the Manchester side’s middle third.
And young centre-backs Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis – aged 20 and 19 respectively – were bought at a combined outlay of around £64m.
Uzbekistan international Khusanov, who came from Lens, has looked right at home in the City backline since arriving.
Reis, signed from Palmeiras in Brazil, has been likened to a young Raphael Varane for his rangy, elegant style.
The mid-season mega-spend was not enough to keep City in the Champions League nor get them back into the title race. Well, at least not this season.
But the early evidence suggests their signings slump is over.
City are still spending big. Now they’re spending smartly again, too.
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