Manchester City Season Preview 2025/26: Why Pep Guardiola will take City back to the top

The Manchester City Season Preview 2025/26 is here: are the Sky Blues heading back to the summit once more?

FourFourTwo’s Manchester City Season Preview

FFT’s view

The Plan

Return to dominance. Manchester City were widely tipped last term to extend their unprecedented four consecutive top-flight English titles to an equally unprecedented five – then they finished 3rd, some 13 points behind the champions.

Early exits in the League Cup and Champions League, then a shock FA Cup final defeat to Crystal Palace, left Pep Guardiola without major silverware for the first time since 2016/17, his first season in England. So, in his 10th season, his sole aim is to lead a heavily revamped squad back to glory. It will require a vast improvement on nine league defeats in 2024-25 – more than they’d had in the two previous campaigns put together.

The Coach

With his contract soon about to expire and rumours that he may be looking to call it a day in England, Pep Guardiola – ranked at no.5 in FourFourTwo’s list of the greatest managers ever – then lost four games on the spin last autumn. Thankfully, City fans were rejoicing when it was quickly confirmed he had extended his deal until 2027.

Key Player

Erling Haaland hit 31 goals in all competitions last season without anyone really noticing. Even when not at his best, the Norwegian guarantees goals at the highest level, and with 85 in three Premier League seasons, aged 25 and signed up to 2034, he’ll have Alan Shearer worried.

Lesson From Last Year

Rodri is irreplaceable. The Spanish midfielder’s importance to Pep’s machine was already well known – he last featured in a league defeat in February 2023, against Spurs – but his true worth was put under a spotlight last term.

The 2024 Ballon d’Or winner played just 68 minutes of Premier League football before rupturing an ACL against Arsenal, and City laboured in his absence, suffering a run of nine defeats in 12 games in all competitions. His long-awaited return in May – a win, obviously, against Bournemouth – was cause for celebration, although another injury in the profligate defeat by Al Hilal at the Club World Cup raised further doubts about the Ballon d’Or holder’s long-term durability.

The Mood

Forget 2024/25 – further spending, on the back of January’s £180m trolley dash, has brought optimism for a new era. Joining Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Nico Gonzalez and Vitor Reis are new(er) boys Tijjani Reijnders and Rayans Cherki and Ait-Nouri. Their brief: bring the good times back to the blue half of Manchester. Who needs Kevin De Bruyne anyway?

One To Watch

After winning the triple crown of Player of the Year awards (PFA, FWA, Premier League) in 2023/24, Phil Foden blamed injuries and burnout for last year’s “frustrating” follow-up. He has a point to prove ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

Most Likely To…

Hibernate until spring.

City’s late gallop is as traditional as Michael Buble at Christmas. Even without a title tilt to focus on, they finished with 10 games unbeaten to secure Champions League qualification.

Least Likely To…

See you in court. The hearing into alleged breaches of the Premier League financial rules finished at the end of 2024, but at the time of writing, there was still no verdict.

FFT Verdict

2ND Club World Cup hangovers, Rodri’s fitness and Pep’s use of new toy Cherki are among the unknowns.

The Number Cruncher

Fan View

Can City really wrestle the title back from free-spending Liverpool? We asked Lloyd Scragg for a view from the stands…

Last season was our worst under Pep, for sure.

This season will be different because after 24 months of inaction, we have finally hit the refresh button on the squad. We should be a lot better out of possession now we’ve dramatically lowered the squad’s average age.

Look out for Oscar Bobb. He’s 22 now, but 2024/25 should have been his breakthrough season; we hope he has better luck with injuries this year.

Our most underrated player is Nathan Ake.

The active player I’d love to have back is Aymeric Laporte – very underrated and still a top player.

I’m least looking forward to playing Spurs. Our bogey team just hired Thomas Frank, arguably City’s #1 bogey manager.

The thing my club really gets right is fan protests. My personal highlight of last season was seeing City fans collectively assemble and organise a few very well-attended protests – which has already resulted in some important reforms.

The one change I’d make would be to scrap the new 10-game ‘personal attendance’ rule for all season ticket holders. It’s a draconian and counterintuitive rule that wholly ignores the realities of modern life and football-scheduling!

The opposition player I’d love here is Tino Livramento of Newcastle.

A social media account to follow is @theskybluetimes, for outstanding written analysis on City.

We’ll finish 1st, I think.

This preview originally appeared in FourFourTwo’s Season Preview issue which went on sale in July, available here with free delivery

Ed is a staff writer at FourFourTwo, working across the magazine and website. A German speaker, he’s been working as a football reporter in Berlin since 2015, predominantly covering the Bundesliga and Germany’s national team. Favourite FFT features include an exclusive interview with Jude Bellingham following the youngster’s move to Borussia Dortmund in 2020, a history of the Berlin Derby since the fall of the Wall and a celebration of Kevin Keegan’s playing career.