Manchester City have experienced a level of player turnover unthinkable in the Pep Guardiola era. Where Arne Slot benefited in his first Liverpool season by retaining the squad Jürgen Klopp bequeathed, Enzo Maresca must oversee the evolution of City while winning every week. Relying on relatively new players has not cost them Premier League points yet, but there could be reasons for concern before their derby at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Most people assumed City would demolish Coventry. Fantasy Premier League players set a record last weekend for the number who used their one-off option of triple-captaining a player to multiply his points by three. More than 91% used this bonus on Erling Haaland, expecting goals galore. He scored, but that was the only goal of the game. The match was closer than anyone anticipated.

Coventry’s chances were valued at 1.37 xG by Opta, suggesting they deserved to score. The more notable statistic was the visitors having 12 shots. Visitors to the Etihad hit that benchmark 17 times in the Premier League in a decade of Guardiola and none of those that did were newly promoted.

It is inevitable that a team containing many new players are less solid. City’s starting XI against Coventry was full of familiar names; it’s just that several are known for their achievements elsewhere.

Rayan Cherki was the fifth-longest-serving player and he joined the club last summer. Only one of the five men in the key defensive positions of goalkeeper, centre-back or holding midfield was a City player when the 2025-26 season began. It would have been different had Enzo Fernández not needed to start in place of Nico O’Reilly, who was injured in the warm-up, but not by much.

Here is one way we can attempt to quantify turnover within a squad. With 11 men playing 90 minutes for 38 games, a club’s Premier League campaign consists of 37,620 player minutes. There are players who covered 13,998 minutes for City in 2025-26 who have not appeared for them in the league this season, and most of them will not because they have left. This means that 37.2% of the club’s minutes need replacing – this is their turnover rate.

Across Guardiola’s 10 seasons, this figure averaged 14.5% and was no higher than 7.5% four times. Almost everyone who contributed significant playing time in a given season would do so the following season. There was a seven-season period of supreme stability in the middle of Guardiola’s tenure, though the current squad evolution had begun in his final campaign.

Consider who has left since May. Bernardo Silva and Rodri were pivotal to City’s success and played hundreds of matches before leaving. Nico González lasted 18 months, Tijjani Reijnders even less. He came, he saw, he conquered Wolves but very few others and is now in the Saudi Pro League. Omar Marmoush and Sávio (with 50 league starts between them) have been shipped to Tottenham. City’s financial power largely protects them against the cost of transfer failures but their recent recruitment has been flawed in many areas.

In fairness, Marc Guéhi and Antoine Semenyo played only half of 2025-26 for City and quickly established themselves in the first‑choice XI. There is also Jérémy Doku, a key player from last season who has not featured in the league this term. His return from injury will lift the retention rate, though it will not bring City up to the Premier League average (31.9%).

The only teams experiencing more turnover by this measure are Aston Villa, Tottenham, Newcastle and Brighton. They are also the only clubs who can match (or top) City for having five players who logged at least 1,500 league minutes last season but have not featured in 2026-27.

Those clubs, unlike City, are not expected to challenge for the league title or Champions League. Arsenal have kept a more settled squad, which should help them pursue those goals. The far more immediate hurdle for City is the derby with Manchester United, another of the clubs with above-average retention rate. They are fifth in the standings. Marcus Rashford doesn’t count because he spent last season on loan and did not feature in the Premier League.

Maresca may opt to use more of City’s established players for this testing fixture than he did against Coventry. Phil Foden has more goals only against Brighton than he has against United and O’Reilly is fit to return. It is one thing to rotate against a relative minnow, another to take chances in a derby.

Whatever the outcome at Old Trafford, the man charged with the impossible task of following Guardiola has to tackle the challenge with a squad that has undergone greater turnover than any his predecessor handled.