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Guardiola's Legacy: Transforming Manchester City Stars

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City farewell will not be measured only in trophies, though 19 of them in eight years would be legacy enough for most. His reign will be remembered in faces, in careers reshaped and reputations detonated onto the global stage.

Across a decade that turned City into a modern superpower, a core of 11 players came to define the era. Some arrived as prospects, others as proven names. Almost all left as something more.

Raheem Sterling – From raw talent to ruthless finisher

  • Appearances under Guardiola: 292
  • Goals: 120
  • Assists: 77
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (4), FA Cup (1), EFL Cup (5)
  • Individual honours: PFA Young Player of the Year (2018-19), FWA Footballer of the Year (2018-19), MBE 2021

Raheem Sterling walked into the Etihad in 2015 as the most expensive English player in history, a £49m winger with blistering pace and a nagging question mark over his finishing.

Guardiola removed the doubt.

Sterling became a machine in the final third, his movement honed, his decision-making sharpened. Under the Catalan, he hit 131 goals for City, including three straight seasons of 20-plus in all competitions. The wide forward who once frustrated became the wide forward who decided titles.

He didn’t just grow into a key man for City. He became one of the faces of the Guardiola project.

Ilkay Gundogan – The quiet conductor who delivered the Treble

  • Appearances: 358
  • Goals: 65
  • Assists: 48
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (5), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (4), Uefa Super Cup (1), Club World Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: PFA Team of the Year x1

Ilkay Gundogan was Guardiola’s first signing in 2016. It felt symbolic at the time. It looks prophetic now.

City’s midfield under Guardiola had many artists, but Gundogan often provided the frame: balance, calm, precision. He slipped into games, dictated them, and slipped out again with barely a headline. The ultimate unsung hero.

Then came 2023. As captain, he led City to the Treble, scoring a stunning volley against Manchester United in the FA Cup final and lifting the Champions League trophy weeks later. For once, the spotlight found him. It was overdue.

Kyle Walker – The £45m full-back who became a pillar

  • Appearances: 319
  • Goals: 6
  • Assists: 23
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (6), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (4), Uefa Super Cup (1), Club World Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: PFA Team of the Year x4

When City paid £45m for Kyle Walker in 2017, the reaction was loud and sceptical. A right-back for that fee?

Guardiola knew exactly what he was buying.

Walker’s explosive runs from deep gave City an extra gear in attack, his recovery pace a safety net for a side that defended on the halfway line. As City’s tactical shapes morphed and evolved, Walker stayed central to the plan, a constant in all six Premier League title wins under Guardiola.

By 2024, he was the captain lifting a record fourth consecutive league crown. From eyebrow-raising signing to era-defining stalwart.

David Silva – El Mago, the statue, the standard

  • Appearances under Guardiola: 175
  • Goals: 34
  • Assists: 51
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (2), FA Cup (1), EFL Cup (3)
  • Individual honours: PFA Team of the Year x2, Statue at Etihad Stadium

David Silva arrived in Manchester in 2010 as a World Cup winner and a statement of intent. By the time Guardiola took over, he was already a club legend. Under Pep, he became something even purer: the creative heartbeat of a team chasing perfection.

Across his four seasons with Guardiola, Silva glided between lines, threading passes where space barely existed. He finished his Premier League career with 93 assists, more than anyone else in his time in England and seventh all-time.

Fans called him ‘El Mago’. The club built him a statue. Guardiola simply called him “one of the greats”. Few argued.

Ederson – The goalkeeper who changed the game

  • Appearances: 372
  • Assists: 8
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (6), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (4), Uefa Super Cup (1), Club World Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: Premier League Golden Glove x3, PFA Team of the Year x2, Fifa Best men's goalkeeper 2023

Guardiola’s decision to move on from Joe Hart in 2016 caused uproar. Claudio Bravo arrived as the first attempt at a ball-playing goalkeeper and struggled. The second attempt, Ederson, redrew the position.

Signed from Benfica, the Brazilian gave City a new starting point. He invited pressure, split lines with passes, and turned goal-kicks into counter-attacks. Seven Premier League assists underline how much he shaped City’s attacking play from 90 yards away.

His high-risk style rippled through the sport. Soon, goalkeepers across Europe were judged not just on their hands, but their feet. Ederson had helped change the job description.

Rodri – The metronome who became a Ballon d’Or winner

  • Appearances: 298
  • Goals: 28
  • Assists: 32
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (4), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (3), Uefa Super Cup (1), Club World Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: Ballon d'Or 2024

Rodri’s first months at City in 2019 were not straightforward. He was the heir to Fernandinho, the anchor of Guardiola’s first great City side, and the Premier League’s tempo hit him hard.

Guardiola persisted. The education was detailed, relentless, tailored.

Rodri emerged as the midfield fulcrum. He set the rhythm, killed counter-attacks, and controlled games with an authority that grew year by year. In 2023, he scored the winner in the Champions League final, the goal that sealed the Treble and etched his name into club folklore.

A year later, he collected the Ballon d’Or – the first Manchester City player ever to do so, and the first Premier League-based winner since 2008. From struggling newcomer to the world’s best, all in sky blue.

Erling Haaland – The goal machine built for Guardiola’s empire

  • Appearances: 198
  • Goals: 162
  • Assists: 35
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (2), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (1), Uefa Super Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: 2022-23 Uefa Men's Player of the Year, Ballon d'Or runner-up (2023), Gerd Muller Trophy (2023), European Golden Shoe (2022-23), FWA Men's Footballer of the Year (2022-23), PFA Player of the Year (2022-23), Premier League Player of the Season (2022-23)

City signed Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund in 2022 for £55m and dropped him into a team already suffocating opponents with possession. It was a terrifying combination.

Haaland responded with 36 Premier League goals and 52 in all competitions in his first season, powering City to a Treble and their first Champions League title. The individual awards followed: European Golden Shoe, Uefa Player of the Year, PFA Player of the Year, Premier League Player of the Season.

He did not slow down. He hit 38 goals the next campaign, 27 of them in the league as City won a fourth successive title, then added another 34 in 2024-25. Guardiola had built the platform. Haaland turned it into a scoreboard frenzy.

Phil Foden – The local prodigy who stayed home

  • Appearances under Guardiola: 368
  • Goals: 110
  • Assists: 68
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (6), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (5), Uefa Super Cup (1), Club World Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: PFA Young Player of the Year (2021 and 2022), PFA Player of the Year (2023-24), FWA Footballer of the Year (2023-24), Premier League Player of the Season (2023-24)

Phil Foden was the experiment Guardiola refused to loan out. While others urged a temporary move, the manager insisted the Stockport-born midfielder learn in-house, under the highest standards.

Foden’s development became a slow burn with a spectacular payoff. By 2023-24, with Ballon d’Or winner Rodri injured for long stretches, the academy graduate stepped into the void. He delivered 19 goals and eight assists from midfield, carrying City through a campaign that ended with that record-breaking fourth straight Premier League title and a sweep of the major individual awards.

He has not always hit those heights since, but 367 appearances by his early twenties and a new four-year deal signed in May underline his status. A boyhood blue turned Guardiola-era cornerstone.

John Stones – The defender who broke the mould

  • Appearances: 294
  • Goals: 19
  • Assists: 9
  • Trophies under Guardiola: Premier League (6), Champions League (1), FA Cup (2), EFL Cup (3), Uefa Super Cup (1), Club World Cup (1)
  • Individual honours: PFA Team of the Year x2

Pep Guardiola spent years tweaking his backline – four centre-backs, inverted full-backs, wing-backs drifting into midfield. Amid the tactical experiments, one constant emerged: John Stones.

Signed for his ability on the ball as much as his defending, Stones became the embodiment of Guardiola’s defensive vision. Comfortable stepping into midfield, calm under pressure, technically assured, he offered the manager a rare kind of flexibility.

It reached a peak in the 2023 Champions League final, when Stones excelled as a surprise holding midfielder. Guardiola called him “the best player by far” that night. The praise fit the performance.

Across these 11 careers runs a common thread: players refined, repurposed, elevated. Some arrived as stars, others as projects. Under Guardiola, they became reference points for a generation.

As he prepares to leave Manchester City, the medals and records will fill the headlines. The true measure of his decade might be simpler: how many of the game’s modern greats can trace the sharpest years of their careers back to a touchline figure in a grey cardigan at the Etihad?

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