Manchester Evening News

Spain reigns at the Etihad as English players are on the wane

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PEP Guardiola’s City squad is the first in the club’s history in which English is NOT the biggest nationalit­y.

The signing of Nolito in the summer, and the promotion of Brahim Diaz from the elite developmen­t squad, has meant SEVEN Spaniards have been involved in a Blues matchday squad this season.

They added to David Silva, Jesus Navas, Aleix Garcia, Angelino and Pablo Maffeo – who have all been involved at some point this season.

And that meant, for the first time, the group of English players in the squad was not the biggest, with just six.

Pep Guardiola added Englishmen John Stones and Angus Gunn to his squad this season, but the sale of George Evans to Reading and loan transfers of Patrick Roberts, Brandon Barker and Cameron Humphreys saw the figure fall from eight last season.

A study of the evolution of Premier League squads highlights the fact that six is the smallest contingent of English players in the club’s history.

And at 20 per cent of the squad, it is the smallest English contingent of any of the big six Premier League clubs.

Not that City fans will be too bothered – the study also shows that the less “English” the City squad gets, the more successful it becomes!

The number of English players has been on a steady decline since the Blues were the last all-English team to win the league in 1968.

By the start of the Premier League in 1992-93, City were still overwhelmi­ngly English, with 17 out of 24 – along with two Welshmen, two Irishmen, a Norwegian, a Dutchman and a Scot.

Since then City have become the most cosmopolit­an club in the Big Six, with 56 different nationalit­ies representi­ng them.

 ??  ?? Spaniard Nolito
Spaniard Nolito

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