Pep Guardiola is known to be the master of rotation in the Premier League.
Ask FPL managers if you have any doubts, but did you know he is also the master of gradually integrating new signings into the team and getting the best out of them?
Multiple recent examples will be highlighted and explored below to determine how quickly Manchester City’s new signings are integrated into the first team.
The below visualisation shows the percentage of minutes played in each player’s first season and the seasons after that since 2021/22.
2021/2022 Season
In 2021/22, Manchester City made several notable signings, including Jack Grealish and Julián Alvarez.
The latter was loaned back and is no longer at the club after moving to Atlético Madrid during the summer.
In his first season, Jack Grealish played 60% of the overall minutes and started 22 games (26 appearances).
This percentage increased to 64% in 2022/23 with 23 starts (28 appearances) before he missed a chunk of 2023/24 due to injury and subpar performances on the pitch.
There was also a big difference in Alvarez’s game time between his first season (13 starts) and second season (31 starts).
2022/2023 Season
In 2022/23, City’s major signings were Kalvin Phillips from Leeds United, Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund, Manuel Akanji from Borussia Dortmund, and Sergio Gómez from Anderlecht.
Manuel Akanji, who started in only 24 games in the 2022/23 season, played in 73% of the league minutes.
That increased to 82% and 28 starts in 2023/24; this season, he is one of three players to start all the league games and feature in every minute.
Erling Haaland did not require slow integration like the others and has seemed untouchable to Pep’s rotation outside of injuries.
2023/2024 Season
In 2023/24, Joško Gvardiol joined from RB Leipzig, Matheus Nunes joined from Wolves, Jérémy Doku from Rennes and Mateo Kovačić from Chelsea.
Of these four, only Gvardiol started more than 20 games in the league (playing 76% of the league minutes) — Nunes started only seven times.
The situation with Nunes remains the same, and he has not started any league game so far this season, but Gvardiol, on the other hand, has started four out of five games.
Mateo Kovačić was mostly coming on as a sub last season, but this season, even if the sample size is very small, he has appeared in all five games — four of them from the start.
Kovačić played in 51% of the league minutes last season.
Doku, similarly, played in 52% of the minutes last season and has started four out of five league games so far this term.
Kovačić and Doku are expected to feature more regularly, especially from the start, continuing the trend of Guardiola’s signings this season.
