Pep Guardiola believes a summer of change at Manchester City will help inject new “energy” into the club after a disappointing campaign.
City are close to making their first signing of the window, with a £46.3million deal agreed with AC Milan for midfielder Tijjani Reijnders. The Dutchman will sign a five-year deal and is expected to arrive in time to be part of the Club World Cup squad.
The Blues have until June 10 to sign players to feature in that competition and they are continuing to work on a deal for Wolves left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri, while there is a desire to sign another midfielder, with Rayan Cherki of Lyon and Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White of interest.
But there is also upheaval in Guardiola’s coaching staff, with assistant Juanma Lillo and Inigo Domiguez set to depart alongside set-piece coach Carlos Vicens, who has been appointed manager of Braga.
Jurgen Klopp’s former Liverpool assistant Pep Lijnders is one new face set to join Guardiola’s backroom staff and the Catalan believes the new arrivals will help shake things up.
“I’m going to lose people that I adore and they mean something, of course, but it happened in the past with many people,” he told ESPN.
“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.
“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 aim to have the core of their squad in place before flying out to the Club World Cup next week, with their first game in the tournament on June 18.
They have made a proactive start to the transfer window, with Hugo Viana primed to take over from Txiki Begiristain as director of football, but Guardiola said his demand for players hadn’t changed.
“Always the same: Give me good players,” he said. “The rest, it doesn’t matter. The good players can adapt and adjust. We will adapt the movement or tactics or whatever things we say as managers for the quality of the players.
“And especially [give me] players that go to Anfield, go to [Real] Madrid, the Bernabéu, Barcelona, Camp Nou or wherever and say: ‘OK, I’m going to play my best.’ That is the difference, the top players have that.
“But we are not adjusting for the fact that we [had a tough season]. If we win, I don’t have to adjust anything? That is a mistake. When you win, you also have to adjust things.
“Day by day, game by game, week by week [you adjust]. Of course we are going to adjust some things, but not for the fact that we just won the Community Shield.”