Was wondering how they do it so well and sure it’s been that way since Sheikh Mansour bought the club. At other big clubs there’s a first XI that’s going to play most weeks with some squad players on the fringes when fit whereas at City I’ve noticed that they could probably field 2 good starting XIs from one week to the next and wouldn’t struggle. Like sometimes you’ll see Stones and Ake in defence then another game it’s Dias and Gvardiol, sometimes Akanji plays there. Been like that for quite a while remembering when it was 4-4-2 under Mancini and Pellegrini having Aguero and Tevez up front with Dzeko and Balotelli before Negredo and Jovetic as back up. Whenever someone gets injured it’s barely even a problem and they seem to know how to manage big players really well, bit jealous as a United fan as whenever one player is dropped, it’s such a big deal.
Noticed that the formation also changes as well quite often, for example
3-2-4-1 vs Chelsea
3-4-2-1 vs Bournemouth
4-2-3-1 vs United
It also helps to pay apart from Manchester Shity (United), sorry guys, but the guys doing finances are just Shity. And then… Manchester OilCity.
Who have ±40mil wage bill bigger than any other team in the league (Arsenal, apart from United, who are even with them)… below Arsenal is another 16mil drop to Chelsea. They essentially spend 25% more on wages. If you have the luxury to do that, the bench may be very competitive place to be and those guys might even be happy to be there.
Just to put it into perspective. Their wage bill - 202mil. Arsenal 166 mil., Odegaard, Saka, Jesus, those 3 are 35mil, imagine you can have this caliber on top of the current squad and still fit within their budget. Lets say bench consisting of Vlahovič, Maddison, Rodrygo. And even with those 3 they would still be under the wage bill of City.
Its not that hard to manage as it is hard to fit within your FFP 200+mil wage bill.