Man City have the first £1 billion squad in football history

Manchester City have confirmed their current first-team squad is valued at £1 billion - the most expensive in football history.

City have invested heavily in their squad under their current ownership, winning four Premier League titles in the last five years.

Last season saw them pip Liverpool to the title on a dramatic final day. Manager Pep Guardiola was keen to avoid that this term, spending £125 million on Erling Haaland, Kalvin Phillips, Manuel Akanji and Sergio Gomez.

It's taken the value of City's squad past the £1 billion mark according to their recent financial reports for the year.

In total, City's squad cost £1.076 billion to assemble with a £354 million-per-year outlay on player wages.

Despite their summer spending, City did manage to end the year with a cool £68 million profit on transfers.

Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko were notable first-team departures, while academy graduates Gavin Bazunu, Juan Larios, Romeo Lavia and Samuel Edozie joined Southampton.

City CEO Ferran Soriano commented: "Over the last five years, we have seen incredible growth in our global fan numbers. In the US, where we held our pre-season tour in summer 2022, it was encouraging to see the incredibly large number of blue shirts at our games and how our international fanbase is enjoying our football.

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We also conducted our transfer business optimally, welcoming new players and seeing others go on to new challenges, generating important profits for our club.

Overall, Manchester City generated record revenues of £613.0 million and record profits of £41.7 million, the latter being more than double the previous club record."

City temporarily returned to the top of the Premier League this weekend after a dramatic 2-1 victory over Fulham.

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Arsenal leapfrogged them on Sunday with a 1-0 win over Chelsea, however.

The one trophy City are yet to win under Guardiola is the Champions League. They reached the 2021 final before losing to Chelsea and were dumped out of the semi-finals by eventual winners Real Madrid earlier this year.

City return to action against the Blues in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.