The £440million Man City have made from selling academy graduates under Pep Guardiola

Manchester City have spent a lot of money – over £1billion, in fact – during Pep Guardiola’s time in charge.

But while rivals like Manchester United and Arsenal have struggled to raise funds in the transfer market, City’s net spend in recent years is comparatively low – thanks to offloading players for the right price.

The reigning Premier League champions have received considerable funds by offloading established big-name stars. Selling the likes of Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres, Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riyad Mahrez in recent years has helped raise transfer funds for Guardiola to refresh his squad, bringing in players like Jack Grealish and Josko Gvardiol.

They’ve also raised almost half a billion by selling academy graduates, often for relatively small fees – but it all adds up.

Cole Palmer, who completed a £42.5million move to Chelsea in the summer, became City’s all-time most expensive academy sale.

Other players – such as Romeo Lavia, Angelino and Brahim Diaz – brought in considerable funds before they ever really broke through at the Etihad.

There is some debate over how many of these players are strictly homegrown – Pedro Porro and Gavin Bazunu are two examples of players who made their senior debuts before joining City – but all of them honed their skills in City’s youth set-up, even if it was for a short while.

Thanks to the work of Twitter user @BlueCityBrain, we’ve broken down the full £442million that Man City have received by selling academy players since Guardiola took over in 2016.

Cole Palmer – Chelsea – £42.5m
Kelechi Iheanacho – Leicester – £25m
Romeo Lavia – Southampton – £22.5m
Brahim Diaz – Real Madrid – £22m
Angelino – RB Leipzig – £21.3m
Jadon Sancho – Borussia Dortmund (plus Man Utd sell-on fee) – £21.2m
James Trafford – Burnley – £19m
Pedro Porro – Sporting Lisbon (plus Tottenham sell-on fee) – £17.4m
Carlos Borges – Ajax – £17.2m
Douglas Luiz – Aston Villa – £15m
Gavin Bazunu – Southampton – £15m
Shea Charles – Southampton – £15m
Angus Gunn – Southampton – £13.5m
Enes Unal – Villarreal – £12m
Lukas Nmecha – Wolfsburg – £11.1m
Jack Harrison – Leeds United – £11m
Rabbi Matondo – Schalke – £10.25m
Aaron Mooy – Huddersfield – £10m
Samuel Udozie – Southampton – £10m
Uriel Antuna – Chivas – £10m
Felix Correira – Juventus – £9.5m
Ivan Ilic – Hellas Verona – £9.5m
Jason Denayer – Lyon – £9m
Pablo Maffeo – Stuttgart – £8.8m
Juan Larios – Southampton – £6m
Darko Gyabi – Leeds United – £5m
Ko Itakura – Borussia Monchengladbach – £5m
Oliver Ntcham – Celtic – £4.5m
Geronimo Rulli – Real Sociedad – £4.00m
Seko Fofana – Udinese – £3.8m
Manu Garcia – Sporting Gijon – £3.6m
Aro Muric – Burnley – £3m
Bersant Celina – Swansea – £3m
Joshua Kayode – Shakhtar Donetsk – £3m
Patrick Roberts – Sunderland – £3m
Taylor Richards – Brighton & Hove Albion – £2.5m
Benjamin Garre – Racing Club – £2m
Tosin Adarabioyo – Fulham – £2m
Thierry Ambrose – Metz – £1.8m
Ruben Sobrino – Alaves – £1.75m
Dire Mebude – Westerlo – £1.65m
Pablo Mari – Flamengo – £1.3m
CJ Egan-Riley – Burnley – £1m
Jeremy Frimpong – Celtic – £1m
Charlie McNeill – Man Utd – £750,000
Terence Kongolo – Hereenveen – £750,000
Tyler Fletcher – Man Utd – £630,000
Luca Barrington – Brighton – £500,000
Harvey Griffiths – Wolves – £350,000

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