Manchester City has a fresh deadline for player sales following Kyle Walker’s transfer

Kyle Walker completed his surprise move to Burnley last weekend, kicking off the exodus at the Etihad. He was the first significant sale of the summer, and many more will follow in the coming weeks.

After signing a replacement for Scott Carson and three outfield first-teamers this summer, Pep Guardiola’s squad is now being trimmed following City’s withdrawal from the Club World Cup.

Guardiola brought 24 outfield players to the US for the event due to early additions of Rayan Ait-Nouri, Tijjani Reijnders, and Rayan Cherki. However, as the season progresses, he plans to reduce the number of players.

That list did not include the injured Mateo Kovacic, James McAtee, who was away with England Under-21s, or Kalvin Phillips and Jack Grealish, who are both available for transfer. Hugo Viana has a lot of work to do this summer to build the squad Guardiola wants, in terms of quantity rather than quality.

Selling Walker to Burnley is a start, but as things stand, the four players stated above, along with the group who went to the Club World Cup, total 28 first-team players still on the books at the Etihad. That is far too large a roster for any manager, let alone one who is so adamant about working with fewer players, as Guardiola has always been.

The Catalan has always preferred a small group and despises having to tell players they aren’t on a matchday roster. A larger group of disincentivised players might potentially cause morale concerns.

“I told the club I didn’t want that [a bigger team]. I do not want to keep five or six players in the freezer. I do not want that. I am going to quit. “Make a smaller squad, and I’ll stay,” Guardiola remarked in May.

“It’s impossible for my soul to [tell] my players in the tribune [stands] that they cannot play.”

Guardiola isn’t going to give up anytime soon, and City still has plenty of time to reduce its squad size. The transfer window will not close until the evening of September 1.

However, Viana will be keeping an eye on another deadline: July 28, when City returns for a three-week block of pre-season training before the new Premier League season begins, which now includes a friendly against Palermo in Italy.

As it stands, all 28 first-team players will be returning around that time, though injuries to Phillips and Kovacic may limit their ability to begin training right away. Guardiola would be desperate to avoid working with such a large group while he is already short on time to prepare for the new season.

He will undoubtedly hope that solutions have been found for Phillips and Grealish by then, rather than having to bring them in from the cold after it has been shown that their futures lie outside of the Etihad. Phillips’ situation is exacerbated by his injury, and his loan move to West Ham was hardly a shop window, while Grealish will be a high-profile departure after a £100 million signing failed to live up to expectations.

Other members of the 24-man squad in the United States are expected to leave. Guardiola will want to cut those numbers, and while some, like as Vitor Reis and Claudio Echeverri, could be loaned out, one or two may have to be sold.

City has worked hard to refresh its roster for 2025, but since the beginning of the year, they have signed eight first-team players and lost only three. That explains why the team has grown to an extent that Guardiola will not be pleased with. He will want it decreased, ideally by the end of the month.