Two consecutive losses against Newcastle (League Cup) and Wolves (Premier League) are pointing to a reality that many people do not dare to comment on Man City, which is that they are out of breath and the squad depth is no longer guaranteed.

In fact, Man City is the team with the least number of players registered for the first team in the Premier League with only 20 people. Quantity cannot be compared to quality, Man City’s players always show outstanding class and the ability to play many positions. However, that still doesn’t explain why they only registered 20 people.

Last Friday, after the loss to Newcastle in the League Cup, Pep complained about the tight schedule making it difficult for his team to have a break to regain strength. However, this talented strategist still insists on not adding more personnel.

“That will bring unsustainability to the club. When your team has 18, 19 or 20 players, many people will ask what to do if there are 6 injuries? So do they wonder the opposite? Again, when everyone is injury-free, what will I do with 25 players? How will I manage 11 people on the field and the remaining 14 on the bench for a long time? I like the future. The football team has a small size in terms of numbers.

This is of course a risk but it is certainly more sustainable for the club. Every player now has to spend a lot of money on transfers, salaries and other things for them too. That’s why when recruiting them, I usually force each person to play 3-4 positions.

Bernardo Silva can play 2-3 positions, this number for Phil Foden can be 4 and so can Julian Alvarez. People keep saying I often have two players for each position, which is not true. A team that wants to be effective must have a stable regular lineup, then add 2-3 changes. When you make 6-7 changes in a week, this is not good at all” – Pep Guardiola shared.

In Man City’s current squad, there are only 3 players who are not asked to play more than 1 position, which are Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland and Ruben Dias. The rest are all diverse, so Pep has been quite good since the beginning of the season, at least until the loss to Wolverhampton.

Remember that from the beginning of the season, Man City’s squad was still quite broken. John Stones hasn’t played a minute yet. Kevin De Bruyne takes a break until December. Bernardo Silva is playing inconsistently and Mateo Kovacic has just returned from injury. Previously, The Citizens also parted ways with Riyad Mahrez and Ilkay Gundogan.

The amount of personnel currently available to play on the field of Man City is bringing a new look when the players who distribute the ball are temporarily giving up ground to those who can dribble the ball.

“If David Silva, Gundogan or Rico Lewis are in the middle of the field. Besides, the wings are Grealish – Mahrez, Man City will have more ball. Especially, if in the same match, we also have Foden, Alvarez and De Bruyne, the deployment speed will definitely be faster” – Pep shared.

In the match against Wolves, when Kovavic did not perform well as an interceptor, Pep replaced him with Kalvin Phillips, who is the only defensive midfielder still in the Man City squad at this time. Regardless of Pep’s reaction or Phillips’ performance, it cannot be denied that The Citizens are missing Rodri, maybe even Stones playing in that position.

You can’t just use the loss against Wolves to make an overall assessment of Man City right now. If this weekend they beat Arsenal as convincingly as last season, perhaps the squad’s depth is just an excuse for those who like to criticize Pep to have a chance to post.