Squad Depth: How the Media Have Created a Farce About Manchester City

Manchester City have become a victim of their own success. It is ridiculous to get to know how false and misleading some of the widely held beliefs about Manchester City actually are. From being synonymous with throwing outlandish amounts of money on players as a way of persuading them to sign for the club, to using their deep and bulging pockets to buy favour from the governing bodies in order to evade punishment for wrongs, and having the largest squad in the division that gives them an unfair advantage in the title race.

It’s all a farce.

The Media even claims that the squad is so large that Pep Guardiola has three players for each position and can afford to chop and change at will, thereby giving him an unfair advantage over other teams. That’s on top of the fact that each of these three players reserved for each position is a world-class player.

So when all these factors are considered, it becomes a no-brainer to see why the team is winning so much and others can’t compete.

Rival fans mostly believe this and so it becomes easy to see the club as the enemy. Every good story needs an antagonist and Manchester City is seen as that in the beautiful round leather game. The players are seen as the bad guys that need to be stopped at all costs.

So when the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea Liverpool and Manchester United splash the cash and build huge squads, they are just trying to catch up with the leaders Man City. Somebody has to stop them!

City have enemies all over the place. From England to Germany, Spain and wherever rival fans are. Sometimes they seem to unite for a common cause - stopping City; the enemy trying to ruin their beloved game.

But this is all a result of the media bias and inaccurate reporting that consistently misrepresents the facts.

One of such ideas that has been continuously fed to the public is that Manchester City have the largest squad in the Premier League. So that gives them the advantage as others cannot compete with their financial might.

A close observation shows that’s completely false.

But the fans believe it anyway, because that’s what they are continuously fed.

With the belief also comes animosity and even hatred for all that the club stands for.

Taking squad depth as an example the fact is Man City have the smallest squad of the top six teams in the Premier League. Realizing that will be shocking for most fans, because it is the opposite idea that has been sold to them.

Here is a list of squads for regular first-team players registered by the clubs for the 2021/2022 Premier League season. They are listed from the smallest squad to the biggest squad.

Manchester City

1. Nathan Ake
2. Joao Cancelo
3. Aymeric Laporte
4. Ruben Dias
5. John Stones
6. Kyle Walker
7. Oleksandr Zinchenko
8. Bernardo Silva
9. Kevin De Bruyne
10. Fernandinho
11. Phil Foden
12. Ilkay Gundogan
13. Rodri
14. Gabriel Jesus
15. Jack Grealish
16. Riyad Mahrez
17. Raheem Sterling

Arsenal

1. Cedric Soares
2. Gabriel
3. Rob Holding
4. Nuno Tavares
5. Takehiro Tomiyasu
6. Kieran Tierney
7. Ben White
8. Mohamed Elneny
9. Albert Sambi Lokonga
10. Martin Odegaard
11. Thomas partey
12. Bukayo Saka
13. Emile Smith Rowe
14. Granit Xhaka
15. Gabriel martinelli
16. Alexandre Lacazette
17. Eddie Nketiah
18. Nicolas Pepe

Tottenham

1. Matt Doherty
2. Sergio Reguilon
3. Cristian Romero
4. Davinso Sanchez
5. Emerson Royal
6. Joe Rondon
7. Eric Dier
8. Japhet Tanganga
9. Ben Davies
10. Harry Kane
11. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg
12. Harry Winks
13. Ryan Sessegnon
14. Dejan Kulusevski
15. Oliver Skipp
16. Rodrigo Bentancur
17. Steven Bergwijn
18. Lucas Moura
19. Heung-min Son

Manchester United

1. Alex Yelled
2. Eric Bailly
3. Diogo Dalot
4. Phil Jones
5. Victor Lindelof
6. Harry Maguire
7. Luke Shaw
8. Raphael Varane
9. Aaron Wan-Bissaka
10. Bruno Fernandes
11. Fred
12. Jesse lingard
13. Mata
14. Nemanja Matic
15. Paul Pogba
16. Edinson Cavani
17. Anthony Elanga
18. Marcus Rashford
19. Jadon Sancho
20. Cristiano Ronaldo
21. Scott McTominay

Liverpool

1. Virgil van Dijk
2. Trent Alexander-Arnold
3. Joe Gomez
4. Ibrahima Konate
5. Joel Matip
6. Andrew Robertson
7. Kostas Tsimikas
8. Fabinho
9. James Milner
10. Takumi Minamino
11. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
12. Tiago
13. Luis Diaz
14. Diogo Jota
15. Harvey Elliott
16. Sadio Mane
17. Divock Origi
18. Roberto Firmino
19. Mo Salah
20. Curtis Jones
21. Naby Keita
22. Jordan Henderson

Chelsea

1. Cesar Azpilicueta
2. Ben Chilwell
3. Andreas Christensen
4. Reece James
5. Marcos Alonso
6. Antonio rudiger
7. Malang Sarr
8. Thiago Silva
9. Abdul Rahman Baba
10. Ross Barkley
11. Trevor Chalobah
12. Kai havertz
13. Jorginho
14. N’golo kante
15. Kenedy
16. Mateo Bassett
17. Ruben loftus-cheek
18. Mason mount
19. Callum hudson-odoi
20. Romelu Lukaku
21. Christian Pulisic
22. Timo Werner
23. Hakim Ziyech

From the lists above, it is clear who had the biggest squad last season. It’s certainly not Manchester City. In fact City’s direct rivals Liverpool and Chelsea were far in front of the others.

But the media will never tell you that. They will never mention it because it changes the narrative from the one they are actually selling.

To think that Chelsea are still buying players this season as if they have the smallest squad in the division. Of course, they need to buy more to catch up with City. And why not try to buy City’s own players? That could be the best way to weaken them. How the Media will love to see the mighty fallen at the end of the campaign!