Two stars axed, new players included - Man City confirm 27-man Club World Cup squad
Manchester City have confirmed their travelling squad for the Club World Cup as Jack Grealish and Kyle Walker are left out.
Manchester City will take a 27-man squad to the Club World Cup bolstered by around £275m of signings since January. Eight players brought into the football club over the last two transfer windows will be on the plane to the United States on Thursday - but there is no room for two key members of City's previous success.
Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Cherki, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Marcus Bettinelli are all included after completing their transfers in the last week. They will be looking to make an immediate impact and add competition to Pep Guardiola's squad after an acceptance from chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak that the club had not been aggressive enough last summer with their recruitment.
There is also room on the plane for the January signings of Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov, and Vitor Reis. The two centre-backs in particular were brought in as players for the future and were left out of several matchday squads towards the end of the campaign, but are still backed as part of the group; Claudio Echeverri, who arrived from River Plate in February, is also there.
Kyle Walker and Jack Grealish are two big omissions, with both left out on the expectation that they have played their last game for the club. Walker began the last campaign as club captain yet asked to leave in January and joined AC Milan on loan, while Grealish started just one Premier League game from January and was left out of the squad for the final match.
James McAtee is also absent as he is captaining England at the Under-21 European Championship instead, although he is expected to leave this summer as well.
The FIFA Club World Cup will see 32 of the world's best club teams including Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, PSG and Bayern Munich play across 63 games from June 14-July 13.
Fans can watch every match live and for free by signing up to DAZN.
Guardiola welcomes three new faces onto his coaching staff for the tournament as well. Academy coach and former City defender Kolo Toure will step up for the summer, while Pep Lijnders and James French have joined permanently to compensate for the departures of Carlos Vicens, Juanma Lillo and Inigo Dominguez.
"In 15 years, a lot left, everyone cheated on me! But the new ones, younger people and new players, they always bring this energy and this energy revitalises a lot," Guardiola said last week.
"I need energy for myself and the people give me energy. You see the eyes, new faces, 'I want to do it', 'I want to be there', new little details in the training sessions. It's new energy.
"Because energy for itself, the energy is one Premier League more, one Champions League more or one Community Shield more? It's not. It's not going to change my life one Premier League more or less in my period in Man City, it's not going to change anything.
"But the [new] people, they give you that [energy] day by day, the people. That is the reason why changing players and staff is really good."
City could have taken a bigger squad with them to the United States but have opted not to fill every place, leaving academy players at home to do their own pre-season. As a result, plans to bring Under-21 coach Ben Wilkinson and his assistant Craig Mudd to help out have changed as they are needed to lead the preparation of the youth teams for the season.
CITY SQUAD: Ederson, Ortega, Bettinelli, Lewis, Nunes, Khusanov, Reis, Akanji, Stones, Ake, Dias, Gvardiol, O'Reilly, Ait-Nouri, Rodri, Gonzalez, Silva, Reijnders, Gundogan, Foden, Echeverri, Savinho, Doku, Cherki, Marmoush, Bobb, Haaland.
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