Who To Pick From Man City

Drafting from Man City

Manchester City are second on power at 88, behind only Arsenal on 90, and they hold the one number every drafter should care about: 15 elite players, a count only Arsenal's 18 beats and only Manchester United matches. That is the whole case for taking City picks early and often. Very little of this squad is wasted on you.

Erling Haaland at 96 is the headline, and he is not up there alone. City's striker group is Haaland at 96 on his own, still the best position group in the entire league, and the one place on the wheel where you can draft close to blind and still be right. Behind him Rúben Dias is a 92 at centre-back, Joško Gvardiol a 90 alongside him and Gianluigi Donnarumma a 90 in goal. That is 25 players, a spread of 11, 8 of them English.

The trap is the goalkeeper. Gianluigi Donnarumma is a 90 and the joint third-best player at the club, yet City's keeping group as a whole averages 77 across three. Take Donnarumma or take nothing. The two men behind him drag that average down hard, and there is no version of a City goalkeeper pick that works if it is not him.

For a legend, Kevin De Bruyne at 97 is the spend, and not out of nostalgia. Look again at the top five: a striker, two centre-backs, a keeper and Phil Foden at 88. Behind Foden the central midfield thins out fast: Elliot Anderson at 87 and Mateo Kovačić at 86 are the best of it, and Ayyoub Bouaddi at 73 is the only holding midfielder on the books. De Bruyne is the highest-rated midfielder in City's legend pool, level on 97 with Sergio Agüero, and he plugs the one genuine structural gap in a squad that does not have many; if it is the base you would rather fix, Rodri at 95 is the holding option in the same pool. Agüero would only be gilding the strikers, and the strikers are already the best group going.