This Manchester City season preview 2023/24 asks one question: How do you improve on perfection?
If you’re Pep Guardiola, you probably spend your summer Googling ‘Nathan Jones strengths and weaknesses’. The Welshman had a thoroughly joyless existence in 2022/23 but it was his Southampton team, in the League Cup quarter-finals, that denied Manchester City the chance of an unprecedented clean sweep of trophies.
Pep will have slept just fine this summer, mind: in finally ending his club’s long pursuit of Champions League glory – 15 years and more than £1.5 billion of transfer fees later, under their ownership – he has scratched his and their major itch.
The plan from here, then? The same as it always is: make them even better. City have set the bar so robotically high that quadruple talk is inevitable from the off. You wouldn’t put it past them. FourFourTwo previews Manchester City's Premier League season.
Manchester City season preview 2023/24: The lesson from last year
Not so much a lesson as a warning shot that’s still ringing in their ears. Having already gone to war with UEFA, the club are embroiled in a similarly bitter battle with the Premier League that threatens to turn very ugly.
In February, City were slapped with 115 financial charges, dating from 2009 to 2018, effectively accusing them of falsifying accounts and artificially inflating commercial deals over that nine-year period.
The club has refuted every charge but, if found guilty, could face punishments ranging from fines (manageable) to expulsion (less so). UEFA tried to ban them from European competition for two years after alleged breaches of FFP, only for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn that decision, so City have been here before and won – but the black cloud remains.
The coach: Pep Guardiola
Even after winning the lot with this club, success means just as much as ever to Pep Guardiola – as seen in the Catalan’s tears at Wembley having defeated rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup final. Summer reports suggest that he will leave the Etihad at the end of his deal in 2025, so enjoy him while you can.
Key player: Rodri
While Haaland’s brutal goalscoring makes headlines, City miss Rodri most when he’s not around. Both creator and destroyer in midfield, he maintains order in a way that makes him undroppable – a word rarely associated with his gaffer – and came in clutch with the winner in the Champions League final, too.
The mood around Manchester City
Blue flares in the pouring rain felt like a fitting way for thousands of fans to celebrate their Treble on Manchester’s streets. From the Kippax to kings of Europe, it’s been a long, controversial journey to get here, but nothing can dampen the mood.
Supporters have watched their side match their angry red neighbours’ historic feat, wallop 150-plus goals in a season for a fourth time – something no other English club has done even once – and inflict Real Madrid’s joint-heaviest Champions League defeat with systematic cruelty. It’s Manchester City against the world… and Pep’s men are currently winning.
One to watch
At 23, Julian Alvarez has already won eight different major trophies, peaking with the World Cup, Copa America and two continents’ biggest club prizes. Now he’ll have sights on beefing up his game time, having bagged 16 goals in a hugely promising debut campaign.
Most likely to...
Still be hungover on the opening day: Jack Grealish, whose post-Istanbul partying filled our socials for days. Hic.
Least likely to...
Give up their season ticket: 37-year-old Scott Carson – a two-time European champion and loving life – has received one more year of front-row viewing.
The fan's view: Lloyd Scragg (@lloyd_scragg)
Last season was absolutely outstanding. With the Treble, it’s hard not to feel as if we have completed club football.
This season will be different because we’ve finally got the Champions League monkey off our back, which is massive from a mentality perspective. But the main focus will be to win a fourth consecutive Premier League title, which has never been done before in England. Ever.
I won’t be happy unless we replace the players who’ll leave, post-Treble, for a new challenge. We got away with a very small squad of just 17 senior outfield players, when we generally go deep in all four competitions, and now we’ll have the Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup, too.
Our key player will be Phil Foden, as one of the midfield No.8s. He played centrally in City’s youth sides, so there’s a lot of excitement about it.
Look out for James McAtee, seeing as Rico Lewis ‘broke through’ last season.
The pantomime villain will be the Premier League’s charges against the club.
Fans think our owner is brilliant, from a footballing perspective. The regeneration of East Manchester near the stadium has also been great.
The one change I’d make would be the reprehensible increases to season ticket prices over the past seven or eight years. It’s a disgrace. The club treats match-going fans as second-class citizens.
The player I’d happily drive to another club is Sergio Gomez – a decent footballer but nowhere near good enough defensively, and our success was partly built on our back four revelling in their one-on-one battles.
Our most underrated player is Nathan Ake. Most fans would have him in City’s top five players of 2022/23.
We’ll finish 1st.
Season previews for the Premier League, League One and League Two are all available HERE
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