Manchester City
Today's Talking Points
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1This is the first Manchester City season since 2015-16 without Pep Guardiola in the dugout. He stepped down in the summer after a decade that redefined the club, and Enzo Maresca has come in as his permanent successor on a three-year deal.
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2Maresca isn't a total stranger to City — he was on Guardiola's coaching staff during the treble-winning 2018-19 season — but this time he's the one making the calls, after stints in charge of Leicester and Chelsea.
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3The squad looks different too: Rodri completed a move to Barcelona at the end of August, and Bernardo Silva left when his contract expired. It's the first City side since 2018-19 without Rodri and since 2016-17 without Bernardo — two genuinely era-defining players gone in one summer.
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4It's also the club's first Champions League campaign without Guardiola since 2015-16, which makes this a proper transition season rather than business as usual with a new face at the front.
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5Whatever happens results-wise early on, cut Maresca some slack in conversation. Replacing a decade of Guardiola is one of the hardest jobs in world football, not a like-for-like swap.
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Top thing to say down the pub
City fans have had a decade of just assuming they'd win the league — this is the first season in a while where that's a genuine question rather than a formality.
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Avoid saying
"City will walk it as usual" — ignores that they've lost their manager of a decade plus Rodri and Bernardo Silva in the same summer, about as big an off-season shake-up as any club in the league has had.
