With the main squad enjoying a late holiday following the Club World Cup there were plenty of moves in and out of the squad.
Kayky made his loan spell at Bahia permanent for an undisclosed fee. Then Kyle Walker finished his time at City with a transfer to newly promoted Burnley for a fee of up to £5M
18 year old midfielder Sverre Nypan signed from Norwegian side Rosenborg for £12.5M, City recouping most of the fee as Maximo Perrone joined Como for £11.3M.
After selling James Trafford to Burnley in 2023 for an initial fee of £15M, City exercised there buy back clause, and brought the England U-21 keeper back, a £31M fee was agreed, although City received £4 million back due to their sell-on clause, and so only paid £27 million.
Moving on a season long loan, Vitor Reis joined Girona.
City’s only official pre-season friendly was at Palermo, The Blues winning 3-0 and lifting the Anglo Palermitan Trophy.
Out of favour Jack Grealish then joined Everton on a season long loan with a £50M option to buy.
City opened their Premier League campaign at Wolves with a great 4-0 victory, with four debutants all playing well.
With James McAtee’s first team chances looking limited, he joined Nottingham Forest in a deal worth up to £30M, The Blues also inserting ‘sell on’ and ‘buy back’ clauses into the contract.
Young Argentine midfielder Claudio Echeverri then joined Bayer Leverkusen on a season long loan.
An expectant home crowd were soon brought down to earth as Tottenham visited The Etihad and were the much better side, and won 2-0, Pep commenting after the match: “I know how we are working and what the players are doing. There are many good things but we have to improve.”
Unfortunately, things didn’t improve immediately, and another defeat followed, 2-1 at Brighton. Rodri, who had returned for his first start of the season, stated after the match: “We have to look to ourselves and see that this is not the way to achieve things. Let’s go to the international break, clean our minds and come back stronger.”
As players left their clubs for their countries for the first International break of the season, the transfer window closed with a flurry of last minute ‘business’.
After eight years at the Etihad Ederson moved to Fenerbahce for a fee of £12M. Then Akanji moved on a season long loan to Inter Milan.
City then paid PSG £26M to bring possibly the best goalkeeper in the world to Manchester; Gianluigi Donnarumma putting pen to paper.
Finally Ilkay Gundogan left on a free transfer, joining Turkish side Galatasaray.
The first match after the break was a visit to the Etihad by a struggling Manchester United, and City added another recent derby victory, winning 3-0.
Then in the first group game in the Champions League, the return of Kevin de Bruyne for Napoli could not stop an easy 2-0 victory for City.
In a great, and unusual, ‘backs to the wall’ performance at Arsenal, Pep’s side were unlucky to just come away with a 1-1 draw.
In the Carabao Cup 3rd Round, Huddersfield were easily disposed of 2-0, as were Burnley, City winning 5-1 against the newly promoted side in the Premier League.
The Blues then climbed to within three points of leaders Arsenal with a disciplined 1-0 victory at Brentford, despite a slight slip in the Champions League a few days before when they dominated in Monaco, but came away with a 2-2 draw.
After the second international break the Blues kept Arsenal within their sights with a dominant 2-0 victory at The Etihad against Everton, before a trip to Spain in the Champions League where they beat Villarreal 2-0.