Manchester City have experienced a level of player turnover unthinkable in the Pep Guardiola era. Where Arne Slot benefited in his first Liverpool season by retaining the squad Jürgen Klopp bequeathed, Enzo Maresca must oversee the evolution of City while winning every week. Relying on relatively new players has not cost them Premier League points yet, but there could be reasons for concern before their derby at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Most people assumed City would demolish Coventry. Fantasy Premier League players set a record last weekend for the number who used their one-off option of triple-captaining a player to multiply his points by three. More than 91% used this bonus on Erling Haaland, expecting goals galore.
He scored, but that was the only goal of the game. The match was closer than anyone anticipated. Coventry’s chances were valued at 1.37 xG by Opta, suggesting they deserved to score.
The more notable statistic was the visitors having 12 shots. Visitors to the Etihad hit that benchmark 17 times in the Premier League in a decade of Guardiola and none of those that did were newly promoted. It is inevitable that a team containing many new players are less solid.
City’s starting XI against Coventry was full of familiar names; it’s just that several are known for their achievements elsewhere. Rayan Cherki was the fifth-longest-serving player and he joined the club last summer. Only one of the five men in the key defensive positions of goalkeeper, centre-back or holding midfield was a City player when the 2025-26 season began.
It would have been different had Enzo Fernández not needed to start in place of Nico O’Reilly, who was injured in the warm-up, but not by much. Here is one way we can attempt to quantify turnover within a squad. With 11 men playing 90 minutes for 38 games, a club’s Premier League campaign consists of 37,620 player minutes.
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