Manchester City have barely progressed at all despite spending £327m since 2011

The reward for failure at the Etihad Stadium has been repeated shots at redemption for the club’s under-performing players

Manchester City will attempt to achieve a dramatic Champions League fightback against Barcelona tomorrow with a team containing as many as nine of the players who took the club’s first faltering steps in the competition in September 2011.
Despite failing to progress beyond the last 16 of the Champions League in three previous attempts – two under Roberto Mancini and one with Manuel Pellegrini – the City team who play in the Nou Camp will highlight the remarkable lack of evolution at the Etihad Stadium since Mancini’s side were held to a 1-1 draw by Napoli in Manchester at the start of the 2011‑12 season.
While City’s domestic and European rivals have all undergone major transformations during the same period, with Arsenal changing as many as 10 players from their first Champions League line-up of 2011‑12, the reward for failure at the Etihad Stadium has been repeated shots at redemption for the club’s under-performing players – despite a transfer spending outlay of more than £300 million in that time.
Since the start of the 2011-12 season, City have spent £327 million on new players, but when Pellegrini’s team face Barcelona tomorrow, attempting to overturn a 2-1 deficit, the only men missing from the team who faced Napoli 3½ years ago will be Joleon Lescott and Gareth Barry, who have since left for West Bromwich Albion and Everton respectively.
Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany, Aleksandar Kolarov, Yaya Touré, Samir Nasri, David Silva, Sergio Agüero and Edin Dzeko remain in the first team, with Martin Demichelis and Fernandinho likely to fill the gaps left by Lescott and Barry.
Since September 2011 City have attempted to change the face of their squad, but their recruitment strategy, which had been such a success during the first three years of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s ownership, has been dismal during the past 3½ years.
Aside from Fernandinho, a £30 million signing from Shakhtar Donetsk, and the bargain £3.5 million acquisition of Demichelis from Atlético Madrid, City have lavished money on players who have failed to deliver.
The likes of Jack Rodwell, Scott Sinclair and Matija Nastasic, signed to reduce the average age of what is now the oldest squad in the Premier League, have all moved on since arriving in August 2012, while Eliaquim Mangala, the £42 million centre-half, has proven too erratic to be considered a regular starter by Pellegrini.
Others such as Bacary Sagna, Fernando, Jesus Navas and goalkeeper Willy Caballero have done little to enhance the quality of the City squad and make it competitive in Europe.
Despite the cycle of failure on the European stage, Pellegrini insists that his squad – whose average age is just above 29 – is perfectly primed to succeed. “I think we have a squad in their best moments,” he said. “For me, the best moments of a player, or the best performance of the players, is between 25 and 30 years. It is also very important to have young players, but that is not a problem we can worry about at this moment.”
The lack of emerging talent at City is an issue which could be resolved by the addition of players under the age of 24 this summer, but the likes of Mangala, Rodwell, Sinclair and Nastasic prove there can be no guarantees with young talent.
But the ability of City’s Champions League rivals to renew their squads since 2011 suggests that the Premier League champions have fallen asleep at the wheel while others have been alert to the road ahead.
Their opponents tomorrow night, Barcelona, began 2011-12 as European champions but their team is expected to have six changes to the one who took the field 3½ years ago, including the departures of iconic figures such as Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Eric Abidal and David Villa, with the likes of Luis Suárez, Neymar and Jordi Alba coming in during a £281 million spending spree.
Real Madrid, the reigning European champions, have made seven changes since September 2011, at a cost of £344 million, with Xabi Alonso, Ángel Di María and Mesut Özil being replaced by Toni Kroos, Gareth Bale and Isco.
Bayern Munich have spent £206 million to make nine changes to the team from September 2011, with Chelsea making the same number of ins and outs to the team who began the campaign that ended with Champions League glory in 2012.
Arsenal’s churn has been the biggest, but the response from City may be to point out that Arsène Wenger’s team have little to show in Europe for such wholesale changes.
But if City hit the Champions League buffers again in Barcelona, it is unlikely that the failures of the 'Napoli Nine’ will be tolerated for yet another season.

Lot of bollocks in that article. If the journalist is purely looking at CL performance as a sign of evolution, then god knows what he thinks of Arsenal...

Figures about 100m out too.

Don't shoot the messenger....

I just hate it when journalists use incorrect facts blueboy! By all means they can put their opinion, but don't just lie!

I'm not surprised the final figures are wrong, as they state that Mangala cost us £42m

His signing was masked in all sorts of issues Den. £32m was the quoted market price, but Porto only announced to the stock market that he was sold for £24.3m.

That was a 56.7% share of the defenders contract.

Doyen Sports owned the rest of his contract....which means if they 'did' get their market share, that'd be £43m....but as we know, third party ownership is illegal in the PL.

So how much we actually paid for him is anyone's guess.

Even if the figures are a bit OTT, we're still no better than when we won the title whether we spent £250M or £327M.