Pep Guardiola has enjoyed an incredible reign as Manchester City manager despite the club’s recent downturn in form.
Having arrived at the club in 2016, Guardiola has managed 495 games for City averaging an incredible 2.31 points per match.
His trophy cabinet is not bad either. Guardiola has won six Premier League titles, two FA Cups, four EFL Cups and ended Man City’s long wait for a Champions League back in 2023.
Guardiola has overseen many squad overhauls during his time at the Etihad and seems to have a knack for moving players on at the right time.
Manchester City's biggest sales
A major part of Manchester City’s recent success on the pitch has been their ability to be proactive and decision-making off the pitch. None more so than recruitment in the transfer market, selling their assets at the right time and most importantly for the right price.
Julian Alvarez
Atletico Madrid
€75m
Raheem Sterling
Chelsea
€56.2m
Ferran Torres
Barcelona
€55m
Gabriel Jesus
Arsenal
€52.2m
Leroy Sane
Bayern Munich
€49m
Cole Palmer
Chelsea
€47m
Danilo
Juventus
€37m
Oleksandr Zinchenko
Arsenal
€35m
Riyad Mahrez
Al-Ahli
€35m
Shaun Wright-Phillips
Chelsea
€31.5m
Arguably, barring Cole Palmer who left very early on in his City career, none of the players on that list ever reached the heights they achieved whilst playing at the Etihad Stadium.
It shows that Manchester City not only recruit well but know when to cash in on a player and make a tidy profit. This summer for example, City were around £96m in profit after their expenditure and sales.
One of their best pieces of business throughout the last few years happened to be Ukrainian defender Oleksandr Zinchenko, who despite once being labelled by Guardiola as ‘incredible’, earned Man City an eye-watering profit after joining the club for just £1.7m back in 2016.
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Oleksandr Zinchenko sale makes 1782% profit increase
Mikel Arteta lauded Oleksandr Zinchenko as an ‘exceptional footballer’ upon signing the defender in the summer of 2022. Zinchenko made an exceptional start to his Arsenal career and was seen as a ‘level raiser’ that propelled Arsenal to finishing second in the league during his first season (22/23).
The Citizens sold Zinchenko for £32m, making an incredible £30.3m profit on the Ukrainian. It could be argued that City enjoyed Zinchenko’s best years too.
The defender made 128 appearances for the Citizens, scoring twice and creating twelve more. He also won four Premier League titles, four EFL Cups and an FA Cup in his time there.
Since joining the Gunners, Zinchenko is yet to win a trophy and is now struggling to make it into Arteta’s first XI. His performance metrics are down too from when he played under Guardiola at Man City.
Assists
0
4
Progressive carries *
1.92
2.76
Progressive passes *
7.31
9.74
Progressive passes received *
2.31
7.59
Pass completion
81.8%
88.8%
Tackle completion
25%
55%
Ball recoveries
13
65
From the table, it is clear that Zinchenko peaked in form during his last season at Manchester City. He produced more assists than his current season, more progressive carries and passes and kept the ball better with a higher pass completion.
A carry is considered progressive if the ball is moved towards the opponent’s goal at least 10 yards from its starting point or is carried into the penalty area.
Defensively, Zinchenko was also more sound at City, with a higher tackle completion and over five times more ball recoveries.
It seems that Manchester City have a knack of knowing when to sell an asset on, in the Ukranian’s case, it was on to a league rival that made the club a huge amount of profit to improve other areas of their side.
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