Maresca faces squad reckoning as City's loan class of 2024-25 returns empty-handed

Enzo Maresca will soon discover the true cost of Manchester City’s troubled loan programme when a group of young players returns to Etihad Campus for pre-season training in the coming weeks, with the majority having endured difficult spells away from the club last season.

Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, Claudio Echeverri and Sverre Nypan were each frozen out at their respective loan clubs, while Vitor Reis and Divine Mukasa experienced relegation. The cluster of setbacks represented a significant departure from the standard City had previously set when placing young players in temporary moves.

There was some context behind individual cases. Echeverri’s loan destination was understood to have gone against the club’s own preference rather than with it — a sign that the transition from Txiki Begiristain to new sporting director Hugo Viana has brought subtle shifts in how City handle certain negotiations. Whether the failures were the product of bad fortune converging at once or a loosening of the club’s historically strict criteria for loan partners remains an open question.

City’s traditional approach had been to keep their most promising youngsters close to Pep Guardiola and the first-team environment for as long as possible. Phil Foden’s development was cited internally as a model for why resisting the urge to send players out on loan could pay dividends. When loans were arranged, the club historically targeted stable, ambitious clubs playing a style compatible with what players would encounter in Manchester — environments designed to accelerate rather than simply provide minutes.

Last season’s cohort experienced a very different reality. Managerial sackings, relegation battles and limited playing time meant few of the moves delivered the developmental value City had intended. The scale of the underperformance across so many loans simultaneously was described as an exception to the club’s usual standards.

Viana, who was brought in to maintain the direction Begiristain had set over more than a decade, will be expected to tighten the process. Those who know both men say they share many qualities, but the loan outcomes of 2024-25 suggest at least one area where the new era has yet to find its footing.

Maresca’s task in the weeks ahead is to evaluate each returning player individually — identifying who has emerged from the experience ready to compete for a first-team place and who would benefit from another loan, this time to a more carefully chosen destination. The answers will shape City’s squad planning for the season ahead and offer the clearest early signal of how Viana intends to manage the club’s pipeline of young talent going forward.