When Pep Guardiola looks at his captain, he will see a man with the same medal collection as him from their time in England. He has won 18 trophies with Manchester City, each with Bernardo Silva by his side. Yet, increasingly, they are the anomalies. City have been England’s most successful team during the Guardiola decade. And yet, unusually for them, much of his squad have no silverware to show for their first-team City careers.
Recent years have seen an exodus of the serial winners – Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker, Ederson, Manuel Akanji and Jack Grealish last summer; Julian Alvarez, Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte before then – while the last 12 months have brought a dozen signings. Gianluigi Donnarumma arrived as a Euro 2020 and Champions League winner but the other newcomers are nothing like as decorated.
City have, of course, been bolstered by homegrown additions to the group. Max Alleyne is in line to make just his third City appearance in the Carabao Cup semi-final against Newcastle United, the £62.5m signing Antoine Semenyo only his second. They represent two types of players for whom the Carabao Cup assumes a greater than normal importance.
“It’s not so much for the lifting of the silverware but more to be self-aware and [think], ‘OK, we won, we are able to do it’,” rationalised Guardiola. “[There are a] few who have not been there before, and it is important for a group to try to experience and learn from the lessons.”
Indeed, Guardiola could name a starting 11 with as many as seven players who have never won a trophy for City, in James Trafford, Abdukodir Khusanov, Alleyne, Nico Gonzalez, Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders and Semenyo. That Khusanov was the first of the signings to join, and that the first anniversary of his move from Lens does not fall until next week, is a partial explanation, though City lost the FA Cup final last season.
O’Reilly, meanwhile, was at least a member of the side that won the Community Shield in 2024, though its significance can be questioned, and that side had survivors of previous generations.
Since then, Guardiola has shifted his focus to the future. There were players who lifted three trophies in as many games and five in a few months in 2023; they have been replaced by ones with no cups for City, but the talent to claim them in future years.
“Eighty-five per cent of the players will be players for the next years,” he argued. The captain Silva may not be one of them, with his contract expiring at the end of the season and a number of European clubs sniffing around.
Trafford may not be, either, though he is only 23. “I would like him to stay for many years because he has attributes to play for a big, big club like us,” said Guardiola. But the goalkeeper has been demoted since Donnarumma’s arrival and may have to move to play first-team football in more prestigious competitions.
Yet Khusanov, who endured a traumatic debut against Chelsea, has showed potential and pace. “He’s a really, really special player for the way we play,” said Guardiola of the Uzbekistan centre-back. “He helped us a lot because we play so high. He’s a fast player.”
As Khusanov shows, progress has not always been smooth for the 2025 influx. But Gonzalez, unimpressive at the end of last season, has excelled as Rodri’s stand-in this season. Cherki and Reijnders have offered new dimensions to the midfield. Rayan Ait-Nouri, however, has been comprehensively eclipsed by the rise of O’Reilly; the Algeria international missed a connecting flight on his way back from the African Cup of Nations, which may mean he does not play against Newcastle. Omar Marmoush, bought last January, is still at Afcon but seems less likely to play regularly after the purchase of Semenyo, the third-highest scorer in the Premier League.
Meanwhile, the bona fide City greats have gone, replaced by the men who showed promise at Bournemouth and Burnley, Lyon and Lens. If they earned moves to City, it has left each with something to prove. Victories on stages like this can lead to more; one trophy to others.
“A player says if I’ve done it, I can do it again,” Guardiola explained. “When you play in Bernabeu or Camp Nou or certain places, when you play many times you are better. It’s a question of process. As much as you play finals and semi-finals, it helps for the future of that club.” And as City get nearer the date when Guardiola may be part of their past, a theme of the end of his reign is that he is trying to prepare them for the future. It is why this Carabao Cup campaign could be the start of something bigger.
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