2022–23 Premier League Champions and treble winners, Manchester City are still one of the teams no one will want to meet next season, apart from Arsenal, of course.
The Citizens’ success last season, lifting the treble, must have made people see them for who they are: imperious under Pep Guardiola.
Although there’s the Erling Haaland factor, looking at Guardiola’s style, he doesn’t solely depend on a sharp striker; he is also used to having a strong midfield he can rely on to dominate his opponents.
Like last season, Pep could effectively count on Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, IIkay Gundogan, and Rodrigo in midfield, as well as John Stones, who delivered. The above players had to find a way to maintain possession and find ways to pass the ball to Haaland, and yes, they did to make him the top scorer in the Premier League in 2022–2023.
However, looking forward to the 2023–2024 season, Manchester City’s midfield are a bit “weakened” after losing Gundogan to Barcelona, and according to reports, Bernardo Silva is on his way out of City. These exits (or potential exits) leave the city less strong. City have signed Mateo Kovacic, but they need more midfield reinforcement. Guardiola needs to sign another top midfielder; he was keen to sign Declan Rice, but Mikel Arteta beat him to that deal. The Citizens may not agree, but in a way, their midfield is in danger, keeping in mind that Kevin De Bruyne is an injury-prone player (in fact, he may not be fit when the season starts).
Arsenal now looks superior compared to Manchester City, even before the 2023–2024 season. Arteta would have tried to look for his own Haaland, but he knows he needs to strengthen his engine room first. He has strengthened his midfield with highly talented players; Havertz and Rice have already joined (and there’s still one more midfield deal to be closed). A Rice-Havertz-Odegaard midfield set-up is imperious and could be unmatched if a deal for Romeo Lavia or Aurelien Tchouameni is closed as well.
In Declan Rice, Mikel Arteta has signed the top midfielder in the Premier League; if Odegaard can be as good as last term and Havertz can rediscover himself, Man City’s midfield will be second to Arsenal’s.
If you look at every top team in the PL this summer, reinforcing the midfield has been prioritized. The league will be won in the midfield, and we can trust Arteta’s engine room to be the best.
COYG!
Daniel O
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Not yet. Need a solid replacement for Partey, if he leaves. Then I would claim Arsenal’s midfield is now strongest in the league, not just better than Man city. With Tchouameni, I would say it would one of the strongest in Eurooe.
Guardiola uses central defender as midfielder, so even if we have better midfielder, we are still in danger of being outnumbered and overrun in midfield tactically.
It depends on how well Guardiola brings in the new when the old depart, having so far chosen well keeping up the squad momentum.
We still need another midfield player to compete with Man City. Sergej Milinković-Savić or Nicolo Barella would turn us into EPL winners.
What a ludicrous suggestion. De Brune and Rodri and pretty much the best in the world in their positions….how could we even entertain the thought of being better before we’ve even played a game.
Too audacious by the author claiming Rice is “the best midfielder in the PL.” Rice is not even the best DM in the league, Rodri is a better DM. Havertz still has to prove himself in midfield, DeBruyne has been a gold standard for years at City.
Rodri and DeBruyne are arguably the 2 best in the world in their positions, bossed us last year.
We have improved our midfield no doubt,, but still not at City’s level, let’s be honest.
I don’t know why we still want to waste money, we have already wasted 65m on havertz whose move was senseless…we already have a solution and it would save us a lot of money…play partey and Rice in that midfield and no midfield pairing in the premier league can match it…why is everyone talking of partey being sold???a fully fit partey and a fully fit rice are unplayable
The Citizens will be weaker without Ilkay Gundogan and if Riyad Mahrez leaves too.
But a midfield with Havertz, Partey, Rice and Odegaard is something to fear.
The Citizens will continue to have thr edges still, with a superior team playing together for quite some time.
It’s a very terrifying line up such as having a midfield of ODEGAARD, PARTEY, RICE AND JOGINHO….
Who still seeing a bench of Havertz, Smith Rowe and a ball carrying elneny
No, it isn’t.
We have lost Xhaka and Rice seems to be in limbo.
Partey doesn’t have the legs to complete a whole season and Jorginho is no spring chicken.
At this moment in time, we are weaker than we were last season – though, of course that may change.
I thing Harvest and rice both are upgrade to xhaka, in term of defending and attacking. Now we have four world class modfilders.
I think if all the alleged transfers that Arsenal still have to do actually happen, as well as the ones that we already know about that will hopefully conclude next week, Arsenal will be able to field a whole team that can go toe-to-toe with City at their best once they gel together. Depth obviously still won’t be as good after just one (Albeit amazing) transfer window, but we won’t have to fear any team in Europe if this all works out.
I’m looking forward to seeing our new look midfield in action, I’ll hold judgment until they’ve spent a bit of time together. I do expect our work rate to go up a notch
That’s not how things work.
You have to prove it on the pitch before you can start even thinking about comparing.
Can’t be going to the gym and then start insinuating that all of a sudden you are more stronger than a seasoned body builder.
You have to first prove it then we can judge..
City have been there and done it all. We aré unproven yet. They beat us 3 out of 3 times we faced them last season.
We need to cool our jets.
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No. I think it is very debatable whether Havertz and Rice is better than last seasons pairing of Partey and Xhaka as things stand without them having kicked a ball in our shirt yet.
Of course this is all just speculation for fun at the moment, and the time will come for the business-end, and then we’ll see. But the potential is there to put together something really special.
As far as I know, there’s been no indication of where havertz will play (could be up front, could be on the wing, could be in midfield – and I don’t think he’s played as a deeper midfielder before?), no indication of how exactly rice will play (box to box cm or DM), and we don’t know if partey will stay (and if he will be replaced, and by who) – we don’t even know for sure that rice will be signed. At this point it’s impossible to assess how strong our midfield will be next season, never mind man city.
We are very strong at the moment but I don’t think we are the best since KDB and Rodri are still at their or close to their peak. Maybe in depth if we keep Partey or replace him with a high quality player since Oily city have been weakened with Gundogan and potentially B.Silva departure. Wouldn’t be shocking to see them splash 100m on a midfielder before the transfer ends.
Partey Rice Odeggard is a strong midfield and considering we dominated most teams last season i think we are still the 2nd best midfield behind City, We are closing the gap though especially in depth which was our achilles heel.
Another good midfielder to replace Xhaka will complete our midfield rotation with Jorginho, New MD and Havertz covering Odeggard. Rotation will be key to keep all players content and fit.
Good combination