Mailbag: Man Utd, squad depth, low blocks and more!
Let's answer some questions
Hello! Thank you, as ever, for the consistently high standard of questions here. They never stop challenging me. Some of the ones I didn’t answer purely because I feel like I need to write entire articles to do them justice. Let’s get into it.
elbeastogrande asks…
“How should we be thinking about depth as a roster variable these days? Pep Guardiola famously wanted a small squad. Is that just done because of where the meta is on pressing and athletic expenditure in every game?”
Because I’m the most annoyingly argumentative person on the planet and like to start answering any question I’m asked by challenging the premise, let’s find out if Guardiola has actually changed the way he manages his squad. He can talk about anything, but what he does should be more revealing.
Here are the number of outfielders who have played at least 20% of Man City’s league minutes, per season, since Pep arrived:
25/26: 14 (so far)
24/25: 17
23/24: 16
22/23: 17
21/22: 17
20/21: 18
19/20: 19
18/19: 19
17/18: 16
16/17: 17
To quote the beloved (by almost no one other than me) HBO series Westworld, it doesn’t look like anything to me.
That matches the man’s words. “I said to the club I don't want that [a bigger squad]”, Guardiola told us in May 2025. “I don't want to leave five or six players in the freezer. I don't want that. I will quit. Make a shorter squad, I will stay.”
City have some injury problems at the moment, with Guardiola even talking about how they’re running thin and having to make do. Someone like Nathan Aké might have been allowed to leave this month with a fully fit squad, but as it stands, City probably twist his arm and make him see out the season. There’s probably a real argument that squads do need to get bigger for a few reasons.
Firstly, the game has become more physically demanding. While footballers aren’t playing more minutes or even covering more ground, they’re sprinting more than they used to. I don’t need to tell anyone that a 100 metre sprint is a lot more exhausting than a 100 metre jog. I do not doubt that clubs are now much more advanced in terms of fitness and sports science, helping their players exert more energy on the pitch. But a substitute is always going to sprint more in the last 20 minutes of a game than someone who started. If the modern game is about sprinting, that’s a useful card to play.
Teams also have five substitutions to play with. I don’t think most managers have adjusted to this rule change. It’s a huge advantage to richer clubs with the ability to bring on quality players from the bench, and it’s just not being used. Teams near the top of the table seem to be making fewer changes, presumably because the manager thinks “it’s going well, so we’ll leave it as it is”. I think this will seem hopelessly naive in 20 years. Make more subs!
And third, while the data footballers are not playing more minutes overall, any increases in workload are heavily concentrated towards teams at the top of the table. Expanding the Champions League only impacts clubs playing in it. City typically go on deep cup runs, and while the Club World Cup might be a minor impact on football as a whole, I’d bet Guardiola’s squad felt the impact of those extra games.
So, in conclusion, yes, I think we should consider it an important variable in an ideal world. But if managers aren’t going to utilise it, then it causes more trouble than it’s worth.
Brian asks…
“How would you resolve the ongoing problems at Man U. Mid table, manager merry go round and reducing revenues”
I would start with the question: Who is in charge?