Ruben Dias has admitted Manchester City needed a huge overhaul to move on from their greatest generation and said their recent signings have given them an added hunger to win trophies.
Pep Guardiola broke up his treble-winning team by signing 13 players over three transfer windows in 2025 and 2026, at a cost of around £430m.
Meanwhile, some of City’s modern greats – and Dias’ long-time teammates – left, including Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish, Manuel Akanji and Ederson.
City’s new-look team could win their first piece of silverware together when they face Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday.
Defender Dias said: “Every player that came in, all of them kind of have this winning mentality. Independent of having won or not so much in the past, they come with this hunger. I feel like that’s very much there to see, so that adds up to our purpose and it’s just extra fuel.”
Guardiola has confirmed goalkeeper James Trafford will start at Wembley, ahead of another of last summer’s buys in Gianluigi Donnarumma, and while defender Marc Guehi is ineligible, a host of other recent recruits are in contention to figure, including Antoine Semenyo, Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders, Omar Marmoush, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Abdukodir Khusanov.
City’s most successful side ever came to an end after a difficult season last year which included a run of nine defeats in 12 games and Dias felt change was required.
He explained: “We talked about it and it was something we did and I feel like it’s taken a very much better route now and it was needed. So obviously lots of things changed after that period, we need to set the standard for a new season. It was needed and I felt like we did it at the right time.”
When Donnarumma arrived, his passing was deemed a weakness in his game by some onlookers but Dias said the Italian has been better with the ball at his feet than he expected.
“I think he surprised everybody,” he said. “People talk so much these days and by the time he arrived here I’d heard a lot more talk than actually games that I’ve seen him play and I’ve obviously seen a lot of his games but I don’t see every week. I was very quick to run into the fact that he’s not bad with his feet. Okay, Eddie [Ederson] was a different kind of style and obviously a different approach but he can still do everything we need.”
