Although last season’s domestic treble-winning effort was fantastic, Manchester City entered this summer with several key needs that have yet to be addressed as we approach the start of another Premier League season.
With a 3-1 victory over Yokohama FM on Saturday, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City wrapped up their pre-season friendly tour in Asia and will now begin preparations for the start of another draining season competing on four fronts.
There have been exciting developments at the Etihad Stadium this summer, such as the signing of Rodri for £62.8 million and the reintroduction of Leroy Sané into the side following rumors of a potential departure to Bayern Munich.
However, despite City’s immense success during the last two seasons of Guardiola’s reign in Manchester, the Blues entered this summer with needs in several key areas in the spine of the team that needed to be addressed. Rodri filled the hole of replacing the aging Fernandinho, but a successor has yet to be found for former club captain and center-back Vincent Kompany, who left to take over as player-manager of Anderlecht.
Moreover, despite rumors of players such as João Cancelo and Ben Chilwell coming to the club to provide competition for Kyle Walker and Alex Zinchenko at the fullback positions, neither deal appears to be on the cards at least at the moment as City finish pre-season.
Therefore, if the current City squad is the finished product, Guardiola will need to once again work his magic in regards to player development in order for the Blues to remain at the top of English football and finally look to conquer the Champions League for the first time in club history.
While John Stones is clearly a flawed player, Guardiola has managed to get the best out of him at times in a sky blue shirt and will need to rely on the 25-year old Englishman in order to shore up City’s defense. Moreover, Guardiola has shown immense faith in Zinchenko’s development as a left-back by not bringing in a replacement while also handing the Ukrainian the previously-vacant number 11 shirt.
With a highly-anticipated clash of last season’s title favorites against Champions League winners Liverpool on the horizon in the FA Community Shield, City must hit the ground running and continue the excellent form that saw them claim 14 consecutive league victories to pip the Reds to the title by the narrowest of margins.
This City side may not have addressed all of its needs to this point in the transfer market, but the weight of expectation will continue to fall on their shoulders. City remain Europe’s best side when firing on all cylinders and they will be expected to win nearly every game and compete at the business end in all four competitions even though they may not be as strong in 2019/20.
With Tottenham and Liverpool both looking extremely strong yet again heading into a new season, maintaining City’s level of excellence will undoubtedly present a huge challenge for Guardiola. But with such a strong squad that has already achieved so much success, there’s no reason to believe this can’t be City’s best season yet.