Quality - not the quantity - is key part of Pep’s plan
THE announcement of City’s Champions League squad was the dullest in many a year.
Under Manuel Pellegrini, it became an annual game to work out which foreign player from the Chilean’s bulging squad would not make the cut and miss out on the biggest continental competition in the game.
Alvaro Negredo was sold in August 2014 to spare him the Champions League axe, and Stevan Jovetic was apoplectic at being forced to make way for Wilfried Bony for the knockout round.
Leaving Kelechi Iheanacho out in September 2015 caused less of a stir, but Pep Guardiola managed a double whammy last year.
Yaya Toure’s omission for the play-off led to Dimitri Seluk’s outrage and the player’s exile for three months, then UEFA’s publication for the group stages included a new signing that hadn’t officially been announced in John Stones.
This time, City did not even come close to drama.
No stars were angered and wouldn’t even have been if Alexis Sanchez and Jonny Evans had both arrived at the Etihad.
It is yet another sign of the manager’s influence on the first team.
His predecessor was firmly of the belief that he needed two players for every position. That immediately necessitates a minimum of 22 for the campaign, and Pellegrini’s transfer activity usually left him scrambling to fill his homegrown quota and forced to leave at least one of his foreign players out when the Champions League deadline came round.
City have only named 20 senior players in their Premier League and Champions League squads for this season.
As Marti Pernarau explains in Pep Confidential: “Pep doesn’t like to have more than 20 players in his squad if he can help it.
“It helps him manage them without tensions getting in the way. He hates that moment when he has to tell two or three guys, in the hours leading up to a match, that they’ll be sitting in the stands and won’t even make the bench.
“For that reason he likes a small group, within which about 15 or 16 of them can feel like they are, or should be, starting players.
“This is a real ‘Pep’ characteristic, which doesn’t necessarily mean it is a virtue.”
That last line is important, for it could ultimately determine how much success City have this season. There should be fierce competition in the forward line, with 11 stars vying for four places in the starting line-up.
But the defence looks less wellstocked, with Eliaquim Mangala already called upon as first reserve given Vincent Kompany’s knock on international duty.
It goes largely unsaid that Toure at centre-back for Barcelona was an emergency option, even if it was for a Champions League final. The Ivorian could be among the players asked to fill in there this season if Guardiola’s plan goes awry.