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Report: Pep Guardiola preparing major Manchester City squad overhaul in 2017

Lots of money, lots of changes

Manchester City Training Session Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Get ready for a real change at Manchester City next year.

According to a new report from the Mirror, Pep Guardiola will be handed another £150 million budget for the next calendar year, and the Catalan will have the freedom to make as many personnel changes as he wants. Guardiola's first season will be spent analyzing the current squad and making decisions regarding which players he wants to keep, and then he'll have a very generous budget to work with in 2017.

A few Citizens are on the final year of their contracts and look set to depart the club for free next summer: Pablo Zabaleta, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy and Yaya Touré will not have their contracts extended unless they impress Pep enough to earn a new deal, which hasn't happened for neither of them so far. Another player on the final year of his contract was Fernandinho, but he has played such great football that Pep offered him a three-year extension, and the Brazilian is a lock to stay at the club.

But the most exciting news are about the signings, of course, and after spending £175 million this summer, Guardiola is allowed to spend a similar figure on new players. His biggest targets so far include Arsenal's Héctor Bellerín, Juventus' Leonardo Bonucci and Borussia Dortmund's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. New targets will come up as Guardiola figures out the holes in his squad he'll need to fill in 2017, and the three above may not even be real targets. We never know.

One thing's for sure: even though this current squad is performing very well with Pep, there are quite a few players who don't fit his style of play and/or are too old be real long-term answers. They will be moving on, new people will come in and we'll be looking at a very different squad next year.