Man City’s need of a full-scale rebuild has never been clearer

Man City need at least four new signings, potentially more if they wave goodbye to more legends

The men who could shape Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United were sat side by side in the Old Trafford directors’ box, Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada resplendent in club suits. The man whose transfer business helped Amorim get the job was on the other side of the aisle. There was a theory that, when Hugo Viana was lined up as Txiki Begiristain’s successor as Manchester City’s director of football, it meant Amorim would leave Sporting CP for the Etihad Stadium.

Not now, and not with Pep Guardiola signing a contract extension. And yet two rebuilding jobs are required in Manchester. Viana at least has the benefit of knowing he will not need to sell in order to buy, that he has vast leeway within PSR regulations and that City’s huge profits from trading in recent years mean that, even after spending in excess of £170m in January, he can anticipate a significant budget.

And yet the scale of the job was inadvertently outlined by Guardiola. City had seemed experts in planning but, as he admitted, they scarcely envisaged this.

Guardiola has extended his stay at City but must now rebuild the team (Getty Images)

“When you start the season and say you are going to play Matheus at right-back and Nico at left-back you would say, ‘what are you talking about?’” he said. His full-backs in a Manchester derby stalemate were midfielders, in Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly. He was damning about Nunes, the £50m misfit who seems to have little future in the centre. “He's not a player to play in the middle because he's not clever enough with composure,” said Guardiola.

Look around his starting 11 at Old Trafford and the centre-forward was a midfielder who is soon to turn 34 and will leave in the summer, in Kevin De Bruyne. The £50m holding midfielder bought in the winter window was only on the bench, in Nico Gonzalez.

Of the entire 11, only one looks guaranteed to remain a first-choice next season in the position he occupied at Old Trafford: Ruben Dias. Josko Gvardiol will probably be in the team, but there is a question if it will be as a centre-back, the role for which he seemed to be recruited, or on the left, where he emerged as a goalscorer.

If it is the former, City have to target two full-backs: it has long been apparent they need Kyle Walker’s long-term replacement on the right, and that it is neither Nunes nor Rico Lewis. Perhaps, given his recovery pace, Abdukodir Khusanov could be used on the right. Yet if he and Gvardiol are bracketed as central defenders, City have seven, and Viana would surely have to shed at least one, presumably from the experienced trio of John Stones, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji.

Omar Marmoush played on the left and Phil Foden on the right at Old Trafford. Each is versatile, but Guardiola is yet to find a formula to accommodate both since the Egyptian’s arrival. Foden has relapsed this season. “Sometimes in long careers”, Guardiola reflected, a player has an off-year.

Foden has struggled this season, reflecting a wider drop-off at Man City (Getty)

So has Bernardo Silva; in his case, there is a question if it is the start of decline, if his huge workload has taken a terminal toll, or if he will be back. Meanwhile, City presumably intend to use Oscar Bobb more next season. Tactically, Guardiola veers between starting with wingers, in Jeremy Doku and Savinho, and men who operate infield.

If he has a surfeit of attack-minded midfielders with too few automatic choices, they require a reinforcement. De Bruyne is both irreplaceable and yet his extreme quality dictates they have to try and find another creator in chief. Florian Wirtz would be a fine candidate

All of which could mean a decision about Jack Grealish, with one league start in 2025 and one league goal since 2023, beckons. Perhaps, too, even with De Bruyne’s departure, it would make sense to shed another experienced midfielder, especially as City have been found lacking in power too often this season. Ilkay Gundogan seems close to triggering another year, Silva has eyed the exit before and Mateo Kovacic was, perhaps oddly, preferred to Gonzalez against United. Is there room for all three in Viana’s squad?

De Bruyne might not be the only City great who departs this summer (Getty Images)

Factor in doubts about whether Ederson will stay – and a past target for Saudi Arabia has had a distinctly mixed year – and there could be a search for one of the few goalkeepers who passes the ball well enough to satisfy Guardiola’s demands.

The consolation is that at least he can plan around two returning superstars. Erling Haaland and Rodri should join Dias as the pillars of the 2025-26 team. If one unanswered question is how Gonzalez would look alongside his fellow Spaniard, if Marmoush invariably starts elsewhere, there is a case for getting a back-up centre-forward.

So while City head to the Club World Cup, Viana may still be their busiest employee this summer. He may be charged with bringing in at least four players, perhaps five or six, getting rid of at least four, and potentially rather more, perhaps with waving farewell to more legends and finding their successors. And if one of City’s advantages in recent years has been that their planning has worked so well that they have only required a couple of first-team signings in a summer, now it is more than that.