Thursday’s signing of Swiss defender Manuel Akanji represented our fifth acquisition of the window, following in the footsteps of Erling Haaland, Kalvin Phillips, Stefan Ortega Moreno and Sergio Gomez, while Julian Alvarez also arrived following a successful loan at River Plate.
However, with several players also moving on to pastures new, including young duo Juan Larios and Sam Edozie to Southampton for a combined £16m on deadline day, City’s earnings across the transfer window fell just short of £200 million.
The largest summer sale in Premier League history saw City finish with a £60 million profit, all while bolstering an already star-studded squad with further high-profile new faces.
And while Guardiola insists this summer’s business is simply the continuation of our recent success in the market, the City boss is confident that the Club will reap the benefits in the future.
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“The Club has worked really well in the past, not just this year, but this year it happened,” he said.
“Southampton were interested in our academy players and took four.
“And of course three important players went to Chelsea and Arsenal. Sometimes in the market, this doesn’t happen.
“Maybe we don’t have this ‘we have to win’ because we won four Premier Leagues in five years so we are more calm.
“When you are more time without winning the pressure is maybe to change. Every year is different.
“This year it happened and we sold a lot and our net profit is really good. It is good for the club because the club must be sustainable.
“We need to be balanced. In this year and the previous one helps us to be in the perfect position for the next years. This is good.”
Guardiola’s men go into Saturday’s Premier League clash with Aston Villa knowing victory would see us move top of the table, having grabbed four wins and one draw from our first five matches.
City are aiming to finish as Premier League champions for the third successive campaign, a feat no team has been able to achieve in over a decade.
Although the boss insists there is a long way to go this season, he admits he’s been impressed with the attitude of his players so far, and the manner in which they have hit the ground running.
He said: “I think we were quite consistent in these games and in pre-season in America.
“We were consistent, we don’t change much our patterns, it helps give confidence to the team.
“We feel good but I said many times it is just five Premier League games.
“So far, after back-to-back Premier League [titles] I wanted to take a look at how people came back and how they started in pre-season.
“The third season after back-to-back [2019/20] was bad how we started, Liverpool flew and we could not catch them.
“So, I was curious to see the training sessions and pre-season but from day one I liked it. So now we try to continue.
“In this league if you relax a little I know what will happen. The big mistake for tomorrow is to think Aston Villa have not started well. That would be a huge mistake for us.”
