Guardiola Has Enough Youth Quality To Prop Up Manchester City's First Team Squad

16 year old Brahim Diaz

Much emphasis has been put on Pep Guardiola's preference to play with a small squad of 14 to 15 players by the media, we all know for an elite English club to survive at the top and succeed a big squad is required. A prime example would be our 2015/16 season, we were in the later stages of all four competitions aka the FA Cup, Capital One Cup, Premier League and Champions League and no other English club could boast that feat BUT. As a result of that we suffered many injuries, injuries to key players might I add including Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and Vincent Kompany. All three of those players were injured against Everton FC over multiple matches, something I won't go into now but lets just say no one got punished for it at Everton.

Along with the injuries I believe fatigue also played it's part in Manchester City coming up short and dropping out of the FA Cup, along with the Premier League refusing to reschedule our matches to help us in Europe. So considering the issues that prevented us from a possible treble winning campaign with 2 players in every position to call upon, could 15 senior players go that far or exceed what 23 players could not. In 2015/16 we played with 23 players, one of which was Kelechi Iheanacho while providing a handful of EDS youth players bench duty or brief cameo appearances.

Could Pep Guardiola be successful with just 15 senior squad members?  We all know Spanish and German football are not as demanding as English football so is it possible? Will Pep cut our senior player list down to 15? And what would need to happen if he did?

Well much pressure would be put on our youth system, something Pep has done at both Barcelona and Bayern Munich. As most other City fans do, I want to see homegrown talent from our academy in our first team. The current rules dictate we should have but, who are capable of breaking into our first team under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and who would City fans most likely want to see?

The players I believe are ready to step up are Brandon Barker, Tosin Adarabioyo, Jason Denayer, Bersant Celina, Aleix Garcia and Manuel Garcia, I'd say Brahim Diaz but despite stepping up to EDS level he's still only 16. If I were Guardiola though I'd give Diaz his chances in the Capital One Cup and FA Cup, I believe all these players are ready to step up and take their chances. That counts two defenders and four midfielders, we are all more than well aware now that Guardiola loves his midfielders according to the media. So that's six youngsters which can be added to the already 15 supposed seniors totaling 21.

Of all those young players, the two that stand out the most for seasoned Mancunian City fans are Brandon Barker and Tosin Adarabioyo, both born Mancunians so there's nothing more we would like to see than those two succeed and become great players for our club. All these players are technically gifted and have been drilled hard in the way of keeping the ball and running at opposing players with the exception of Jason Denayer as he only spent the 2013/14 season with us at youth level before going out on loan, that should not be an issue though as he still has two years experience playing for Celtic then Galatasaray. Whether he makes the grade under Guardiola remains to be seen but, I have high hopes for the lad.

There are other gifted talent in our ranks aka Sinan Bytyqi, Aaron Nemane and Kean Bryan, have all impressed over the course of their City careers at youth level. So even if Guardiola does cut our senior numbers down to 15, we can quite easily accommodate although the more likely scenario will be that Pep goes with slightly more senior players at around 17 or 18.

What's even more exciting is that I haven't even mentioned our U15 and U18 talent and they are taking the youth scene by storm.

So only time will tell what happens but, what an intriguing time we find ourselves in. What do you think will happen? What are your hopes for the new season under Pep?