Pep Guardiola caused something of a stir on Tuesday when threatening to quit Manchester City if his squad isn’t made smaller. Here, we look at his history of working with a small selection.
It’s no secret that Pep Guardiola likes to work with a small squad.
His comments following Manchester City’s 3-1 Premier League win over Bournemouth on Tuesday might have raised some eyebrows or caused concern, as he threatened to quit if his squad isn’t made smaller over the summer. But he’s been pretty clear on this before now.
For instance, back in August 2022 Guardiola said: “I like to work with not many players and have everyone involved. It is what it is. We have shown in the last years we have a small squad and we are there in the last stages [of competitions].”
He went a bit deeper about 13 months later, explaining how this impacts the makeup of players he likes to bring in.
“That’s why when you recruit you have to look for players who can play in two or three positions,” he explained. “Bernardo [Silva] can do that, Phil [Foden], Julián [Alvarez], Oscar Bobb. When people say they want two players for every position, I don’t agree with that.
“To be effective, you have to be starting regularly. If I want less games, I will manage teams not in European competitions; it will be long weeks. When you are in a top team in European competitions, we have to accept it. In 12 or 13 years as a manager, I have lived that all the time.”
So, when Guardiola’s frustration seemingly boiled to the surface on Tuesday, the only truly surprising part was his resignation threat.
“I said to the club I don’t want that [a bigger squad],” Guardiola told reporters at the Etihad Stadium. “I don’t want to leave five or six players in the freezer. I don’t want that. I will quit. Make a shorter squad, I will stay. It’s impossible for my soul to [tell] my players in the [stands] that they cannot play.
“[This season] it happened [that we needed] to add players immediately [in January]. Maybe for three or four months, we couldn’t select 11 players, we didn’t have defenders, it was so difficult. After, people come back, but next season it cannot be like that.
“As a manager, I cannot train 24 players and every time I select, I have to have four, five, six, stay at home because they cannot play. This is not going to happen. I said to the club I don’t want that.”
Guardiola going rogue was, presumably, a response to having to leave Abdukodir Khusanov, Savinho, James McAtee and Rico Lewis out of his 20-man squad for the visit of Bournemouth.
But is the size of his squad really that concerning?
In all competitions this season, 32 different players have featured for at least one minute of action for City.
Now, that includes several youngsters, who’ve played for less than 200 minutes, plus the likes of Rodri and Bobb, absent for much of the campaign.
Is 32 that many?
Well, seven Premier League teams have used more this season, with Southampton and Chelsea (39 each) leading the way.
However, we wanted to filter out the players who’d only racked up a few minutes, so we set the cut-off at 270 minutes played in all competitions – that’s still not many over the course of a full season (the equivalent of three full matches), but it provides a more realistic picture of squad size.
In 2024-25, City have given at least 270 minutes in all comps to 25 players. That may not sound like much, but it is a notable increase from the past.
Across Guardiola’s eight prior seasons in charge of City, the average number of players he gave 270 minutes to across a full campaign was 22.6; 24 players reached that threshold in each of his first two seasons, but that went down to 23 in 2018-19 and 2019-20, 22 in 2020-21, 2022-23 and 2023-24, while 2021-22 (21 players) saw him use the fewest.
This isn’t just a City thing, however.
Looking back over Guardiola’s entire top-flight managerial career, 25 players featuring for at least 270 minutes is the most in any season since he was named Barcelona head coach in 2008.
The average before 2024-25 was 22.3 players playing 270+ minutes. Only 21 players played that often in five of those seasons, which would seem to suggest that is his ideal number.
Of course, the key element of 2024-25 is that City have suffered with some major injuries. John Stones, Nathan Aké, Rodri and Bobb have all spent considerable time out, while Kyle Walker – a regular in the first half of the season – departed for AC Milan in January.
Rodri and Bobb, for example, don’t even count among the 25 players to have featured for 270+ mins because of their lay-offs, but they’d absolutely be considered first-team players when fit.
Then, you obviously have to take into consideration the fact City spent heavily on players in January, signing Vitor Reis, Khusanov, Nico González and Omar Marmoush.
City don’t tend to be hugely busy in the winter transfer window, but their business combined with the notable injuries will have massively impacted the number of players being used.
There was a hint that Guardiola had come around to a new way of thinking earlier this season, when in December he told TNT Sports: “Modern football is not positional, you have to ride the rhythm, it is unbelievable, and we could not. Simply we could not because we did not have the players.
“It happens to all the teams: Arsenal now, [Real] Madrid had it, all the teams have a lot of injuries when you play every three days. The teams that are playing once a week, it is another story and that doesn’t count; it counts when you are playing every three or four days.
“Injuries happen, but not this amount in certain positions and this amount of important players; it has never happened before. It made me reflect that in the future, it may need to have a longer squad.”
Tuesday’s comments suggest he’s doubled down on his original strategy – it means City are either preparing for a busy summer of sales or a change of manager… One of those is considerably more likely than the other.
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Pep Guardiola Threatens to Quit Over Man City Squad Size – How Much Bigger is His Selection Than Normal? Opta Analyst.
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