An incredible XI of Pep Guardiola’s best Man City signings: Haaland, Bernardo… | OneFootball

As Pep Guardiola prepares to leave Manchester City, we present a frankly ridiculous team of his finest signings…

Guardiola is set to leave City after the final Premier League game of the season this weekend after a glorious decade in charge at the Etihad.

The Spanish boss inherited some fantastic players – Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva – but he also had to replace those City legends.

Here is the best XI signed by Guardiola over the past 10 years…

GK: Ederson

By no means the perfect goalkeeper, but certainly the perfect goalkeeper for Manchester City.

Guardiola had already had a go at replacing Joe Hart, a City icon who the new manager quickly sussed could not play his way, and Claudio Bravo was very good with the ball at his feet. His hands, though…

So Ederson was signed from Benfica for £35million – a world-record fee for a keeper, but only in pounds sterling – and Pep had his playmaker in mitts.

Until he decided last year that he needed a last line of defence as much as a first line of attack.

RB: Kyle Walker

“One of the greatest full-backs ever,” said Guardiola before Walker returned to the Etihad as a Burnley player earlier this season.

“It was an unbelievable few years for us and he was the right-back who defined our time here in the last nine or 10 years.”

That despite Guardiola insisting that Walker “cannot do it” when he needed his right-back to play inverted around three seasons ago.

But Pep rarely stuck to one way of playing and Walker remained useful right up to the end of his eight-year City career, in which he won the lot. Six times, if we’re talking Premier League titles.

CB: John Stones

Not many players have been transformed by Pep as much as Stones, who leaves City with the manager having been one of his first signings a decade ago.

“There are few, few players that without them we cannot understand what has happened in this period together and he is one of them… I am so incredibly grateful to live this many years with John.”

CB: Ruben Dias

If Stones was a more modern centre-back, pushing into midfield, Dias has been Pep’s rock at the back, anchoring City through all the success of the second half of Guardiola’s reign.

Dias won the Player of the Year double in his first season at City, since when he’s become one of their most important figures.

“His character is so important,” said Pep in 2023. “His leadership is huge especially even when he didn’t play.”

LB: Joao Cancelo

It all got pretty sour between Cancelo and Guardiola, the Portugal star accusing the City boss of being ‘ungrateful’ and ‘telling lies’ around the reasons for his exit.

Before that, though, Cancelo was pivotal to Pep’s plan to invert his full-backs, the recruit from Juventus making a better fist of it than Walker.

When Cancelo played forward and inside, Walker was more comfortable pivoting around into the back three. So when Cancelo left, he screwed Walker too.

Cancelo didn’t stay as long as others but long enough to win three Premier League titles while being named in the PFA Team of the Year twice.

CM: Rodri

If Enzo Maresca succeeds Guardiola as successfully as Rodri replaced Fernandinho, then City are in the safest of hands.

Pep knew he had it all on to find a player capable of filling the Brazilian’s boots, so it helped that Rodri had a couple of seasons to hone the defensive midfield craft alongside the veteran.

Since then, Rodri established himself as the world’s best in the position, winning the Ballon d’Or while scoring the winner in the Champions League final to win the Treble.

CM: Ilkay Gundogan

So good, City signed him twice…

Gundogan was Pep’s problem solver in chief. Guardiola’s style is prescriptive in the extreme but when things didn’t go according to place, Gundogan so often came up with the answers in real time.

Not only did he pin City together in the middle of the park, skippering the Treble-winning side, he scored huge goals too, including the winner against Villa in 2022 to clinch the title and a double in the 2023 FA Cup final to beat United.

CM: Bernardo Silva

Multiple times it seemed he would leave City, but Silva and Guardiola always seemed reluctant to part, even when the Portuguese midfielder was not the regular he would become.

Now, Silva is going on his own terms at the end of his contract while remaining one of Guardiola’s go-to guys.

Indeed, the 31-year-old made the manager go against his own policy of letting the players pick their captain, Guardiola instead insisting it must be Silva who replaced De Bruyne last summer.

RW: Riyad Mahrez

Like most players when they sign for Pep, Mahrez took a little time to adapt after finally getting his move from Leicester, already a title winner with the Foxes.

He won four more in five years at City, plus the Champions League and five domestic cups.

“An important figure in the success we have had in the last five years,” Guardiola said upon Mahrez’s departure in 2023.

“He is one of the guys in my career who I saw who enjoyed the most – he would play today, tomorrow. Incredible skills and technical ability.

“I enjoyed as a manager to be with him. I had a special relationship with him.”

LW: Jeremy Doku

Having grown bored of trying to train the maverick out of Jack Grealish, Guardiola gave up and signed Doku from Rennes instead.

The Belgian quickly showed himself to be a more archetypal Guardiola winger, exploding off the left touchline, grasping quickly when Guardiola wants him to be direct or part of the City passing carousel.

“Everybody knows that he’s made an incredible step in the sense of saying, ‘I am Jeremy Doku, I am going to win games.’ The greatest players always have that mentality.”

ST: Erling Haaland

Haaland just edges out Nolito with his 161 goals in 197 appearances under Pep.

From the way he reflected as he sat against the goalpost in the wake of the FA Cup final, the Norwegian goal machine seemed to recognise that things were about to change at City.

For how long post-Pep will Haaland stick around? It feels inevitable, despite the ridiculously-long contract, that he will play for Real Madrid one day.