25-Man Metaphysical Roster: MANCHESTER CITY

{Manchester City achieves immortality, sadly}

[25-Man Metaphysical Rosters are divined using a football metaphysics methodology where minutes played over the past 100 competitive club matches determines which 25 players constitute the strongest psychic influence over a club’s current psychic trajectory. Intuitive analysis is then added, done in English by an American, but with a decidedly anti-English un-American foundation. Football metaphysics believes in the beautiful game, not the modern corporate spectacle. We have more of a love for Maradona in Mexico than Messi in Miami. One Premier League club is done each month, as it’s the top domestic league in an English-speaking nation (the language we were born with). This is now a solo project again by Raven Mack, but used to be a small group effort, so it bears saying, Rest In Peace Neil.]

25-Man Metaphysics makes a return because I feel compelled to pretend to know about English football again. I’ve always loved this project, and in the heyday when myself, Paul, and Neil were writing together, it had a strange charm where even though the three of us were in entirely separate spaces, we somehow came together perfectly, not quite like Voltron but like if Voltron were a demo derby car made of used books. But I jump back into this solo, because I love nothing more than ambitious and perhaps impossible projects to dump on myself as an excuse to jabber about the metaphysical foundations beneath the consumer culture we obsess over in our declining American Empire (and in fact, the iron lung decades of unchecked capitalism’s last gasps globally).
One club a month means it’ll take well over a year to cycle through the entire Premier League, and I’m fine with that. Nobody needs to be revisiting these clubs on an annual basis in metaphysical terms like are written about here. The feel of a club has eras which cover multiple years, and this slower schedule will work just fine. But I did want to come out the gate on the restart with Manchester City, as this is currently, without a doubt, their era. In the 7 seasons since Pep Guardiola arrived from Bayern Munich, they’ve won the PL title 5 of those seasons, including the past three seasons, where they became only the second club to three-peat in the Premier League era (also done by Manchester United from 1999-2001 and 2007-2009). But this past season was an extra dominant one, with them pulling off a treble by winning the FA Cup (for the second time under Pep) and finally winning a Champions League title. They made it to the final three seasons back, losing to domestic rival Chelsea (somewhat shockingly at the time, to be honest), but finally made it back this past June, and sealed the deal against an outclassed Inter Milan squad. (Even more impressively, they played a major match in Istanbul as an English club without any prominent stabbings.)
I am no fan of Pep Guardiola, despite his obvious successes throughout his career. To me, he is the corporate football wonder manager, who is able to navigate the oversized egos of a top club and somehow make it work. Sure, that’s a talent, and not everybody has it, but I tend to appreciate the ragged philosopher who motivate a pack of football misfits into a collective shape. Pep’s methods are not that, and though it may seem like the same type of managerial acumen, just at a higher level of money invested in squad, there’s something that feels hollow about a club that can purchase every player it desires, move them around like puzzle pieces (with three pieces to a normal club’s one), and create the desired picture of a team. I love playing Football Manager on cheat mode where I can sign anybody I want, but it’s not quite as satisfying to see in real life. So of course Pep eventually won a treble with this squad… I did the same thing with Wrexham for four years in a row, from 2047 through 2050. If you got the financial cheat code in life, few things stand in your way (including UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, which seem to have enough loopholes and workarounds that they’re fairly impotent).
Nonetheless, with pep at the helm, the secondary Manchester club powered by fossil fuel money has ascended to the highest heights in club history, and established themselves as the pre-eminent club in the Premier League. And though I say that with the warning that all eras come to an end, we don’t know how long this run will last before egos clash and destroy the fluidity of what’s there now, or better yet, Yaya Touré’s curse is reactivated and snuffs the momentum of wealth masquerading as physical superiority. Nonetheless, here are the top 25 men according to our football metaphysics minutes played methodology over the past 100 competitive matches (through June 10, 2023)…

#1: RODRI – The Spanish midfielder has quietly become the fulcrum to Man City’s successes. Key tenet of football metaphysics as we think of things around here is the presence of a quality defensive midfielder who has the ability as a presence to shift entire club from defense to offense, often with a single pass. Rodri joined Man City four seasons back, and it’s no coincidence that they had their first three-in-a-row title run with him after he settled in. It’s also very telling that in a scrappy Champions League final this past June, it was Rodri’s wily missile from a loose ball midway through the second half that gave Man City their first ever Champions League final goal, and ultimately they’re first ever Champions League title. He is not as globally famous as the club’s more superstar names, but he is the backbone of the team as it currently stands.

#2: EDERSON – The reverse colonialism pipeline for great Brazilian players is they rule their native country, get bought up by one of the big three Portuguese clubs (Benfica, Sporting CP, and Porto), make a strong highlight film package in continental competition, then get sold off for big Euros to one of Europe’s behemoth clubs. Ederson was great enough he was shipped off to Portugal at the age of 16, and was signed by Man City at the age of 23, for a transfer fee that was the second-largest ever at the time. And in that reverse colonialism pipeline, Ederson’s fee was the largest Benfica ever got for a player (thus far). Ederson is an elite GK, but not really because of amazing shot stopping (though he’s good enough at that). What he excels at is confidence with the ball, even at his feet, and being able to switch his side from defense to counter-attack fairly adeptly. That foundation at the back end can’t be overlooked in helping a guy like Erling Haaland just pile up goals like he does. It’s not so much that Ederson stacks up clean sheets like a classic brick wall of a shot-stopping GK, as it is he handles his business and gets the ball moving, so that Man City can stack up multiple goals on the other side, which just makes his job even easier at that point.

#3: İLKAY GÜNDOĞAN – Gündoğan spent seven seasons in the midfield for Man City, and was a constant and productive presence. He accumulated a lot of playing time on a squad with enough talent that rotating folks was necessary. Gündoğan had 51 appearances last season across all competitions, and most importantly was a mainstay on Champions Leagues squads. But you can’t maintain a Champions League-winning squad, and Gündoğan was one of Manchester City’s highest profile exits in recent memory, joining Robert Lewandowski at Barcelona, with their hopes of creating a new chapter post-Messi now heavily invested into. How Man City adjusts to him being gone is really one of the biggest question marks going into this upcoming season, where they’re expected to continue fucking everybody up.

#4: KEVIN DE BRUYNE – Gonna be honest here and say I hate Kevin De Bruyne. I hate his goofy face, hate the way he plays, hate how you pronounce his stupid last name. Thus, he is the perfect guy to be a prominent face on Manchester City’s club, standing alongside Pep Guardiola, just unleashing the hatred of the wretched of the football Earth masses at City’s manufactured dominance. He also complicated me pulling for the Belgian national team in European competitions, because I’d be all excited for Romelu Lukaku and the Hazard brothers, but then De Bruyne would show his stupid face and ruin it for me.

#5: BERNARDO SILVA – Silva is, at this point, the elder presence for Man City in the midfield in terms of time with the club, but certainly plays a more support role behind Rodri. Silva’s quietly a great player though, and it’s painful how many top talents a club like Man City can accumulate, and just keep restocking over and over. But it’s also a testament to Silva’s quality that despite being on a club like that, going into his seventh season, he’s still a prominent figure. He’s actually already had over 300 appearances for the club across all competitions, which is second only to Kevin De Bruyne amongst active players on the squad.

#6: ERLING HAALAND – The young Norwegian freak joined the club last season on a ridiculous transfer fee from Borussia Dortmund (whose striped bumblebee kits matched Haaland’s bizarre face aesthetically). Even after joining the Bundesliga midway through the 2019-20 season, he maintained a blistering pace of averaging one goal per appearance. Even though he’d be a freak, nobody thought he’d maintain that level of scoring in the Premier League. But he did. Haaland is a true striker, who thinks of nothing but goals, and not just basic goals but the soul crushing type that break a defender’s spirit. As a fan of football metaphysics, it’s a bit frustrating to see such an immense talent tied down to a soulless club like Man City, but it’s also how things work in the age of modern football. Haaland at Man City lacks the spiritual feel goodness of Mo Salah at Liverpool, in fact it’s like the opposite. But we’re all going to have to suffer through it for the foreseeable future, and Haaland’s likely to only become more dominant. Gonna be a long few seasons for us Man City haters.

#7: JACK GREALISH – It took a season for Grealish to get settled into a new role at Man City and become a regular part of their starting XI. Grealish’s tale is one paralleled by many players acquired by the largest clubs after becoming dominant legends at other English clubs. Grealish’s last season with Aston Villa made him a club legend, wearing some ratty ass cleats and helping Villa survive relegation with a final match goal against West Ham at the end of the Covid-complicated 2019-20 season. He signed a big contract, and maintained that club legend status for another season, but it was obvious he had outgrown Villa. Man City came calling, and the small club legend was absorbed into a club behemoth’s oversized roster, the big fish in a small pond suddenly scrapping for minutes amidst even bigger fish. Not everybody can adjust (my beloved Swansea City’s PL hero Wilfried Bony comes to mind, who shrunk until he disappeared after joining Man City), but Grealish eventually did, and had a fairly productive season this past one. The hilarious thing about Grealish and his style of existing is the exact same characteristics that make him seem like a legend when in some godforsaken club existence like at Aston Villa also make him look like a complete and total douche in the unblemished limelight of a club like Manchester City. He just looks like an asshole now, with that fuckin’ hair and smug ass face. But send him back to Villa in 8 years, and it’s gonna be, “Haha, what a regular bloke; I’d love to get drunk with that guy!”

#8: MANUEL AKANJI – Honestly, Akanji’s addition last summer is a highly underrated piece of their successes last season. He’s solid at either right or left back, and that helped cover all the fluctuations they sometimes have at center back. Akanji had also been teammates with Haaland the previous two seasons at Dortmund, so the two coming in together helped assimilate them both into starting XI. In fact, during last season’s PL campaign, Akanji played more minutes than any other defender. He’s sort of the reverse image contrast to Haaland up top, on the defensive side. And again, he’s going to make it perhaps an unbearable next couple seasons for Man City haters like myself.

#9: RÚBEN DIAS – Portuguese defender who helped solidify defense three seasons back, and has been key to Man City’s run of three straight PL titles. Good with both feet, so much like Ederson, helps establish a solid defense that can also get the ball confidently back the other way. And even though he’s only 26, Dias has been an on-the-pitch leader for the defense, something they hadn’t really had very clearly since Guardiola came in. Even if you have all the money in the world (as Manchester City do), you can’t just keep mixing and matching folks… somebody’s got to become the leader, especially on defense.

#10: RIYAD MAHREZ – One of my all-time favorite offensive juggernauts was when Mahrez combined with Jamie Vardy at Leicester City for that improbable Premier League title in 2015-16. The two of them together was deadly, as Vardy was an unrelenting striker (like Haaland) and Mahrez is classic poacher picking up any and all scraps or openings to add to the tally. That sort of secondary mentality served Mahrez well once he finally threw enough of a fit at Leicester to get his desired transfer to Man City, because that’s all the role he was gonna get there. And despite not ever being an every match player for Man City, he was a constant offensive threat for them (including 24 goals across all competitions in 2021-22). His raw numbers were down last season, as would be expected with a guy like Haaland added to the mix, but Mahrez still got 15 goals across all competitions. However, the French-born Algerian was part of the mad money being thrown about by the Saudi League this summer, and joins a wild collection of players at Al-Ahli, that includes himself, Roberto Firmino, Allan Saint-Maximim, and Édouard Mendy in goal. Despite the influx of expensive players, I do not plan on watching a single minute of Saudi Pro League action (with the possible exception of Asian Champions League matches). I still enjoy Mahrez a lot though, and look forward to him having another run at the African Cup of Nations with Algeria in January. The Fennec Foxes have been perfect in qualification thus far, so should be a contender (again) when AFCON rolls back around.

#11: KYLE WALKER – Look man, Kyle Walker is 33, and despite his most basic name, he can be a brutish presence on defense. But their defense has become crowded, and Akanji excelling, Walker can be sold off, with Bayern Munich reportedly working up a deal. Man, what a fuckin’ weird situation that would be for Bayern to have both Harry Kane and Kyle Walker suddenly. But mostly I look forward to three seasons from now, when Sheffield United has somehow survived getting relegated (inshallah), and Walker returns to Sheffield, for a glorious final run with the Blades. He never got to shine at the senior level for them as he should have. Let that man follow his heart and go home.

#12: JOHN STONES – Ah yes, unlovable doofus John Stones. It looked like he was gonna get lost in the Man City squad shuffle a few seasons back, but he somehow has settled into key defender… at least until they find somebody shinier they can blow big money on. But even with an increased role last season, he still only played in less than two-thirds of their matches. Nonetheless, he’s been able to extend his English football peak in standard trajectory, having gone from Barnsley to Everton to Manchester City. He’s successfully fought off the descent back down thus far, but also turns 30 next May, so the John Stones to whichever middling northern English Premier League club has big aspirations rumors aren’t too far away on the horizon.

#13: PHIL FODEN – In American football, a great tradition of subliminal racism is the deep affectionate love a team’s fans have for a white guy who plays Tight End or Fullback (very different type of fullback than in the world’s football). Of course, it’s never outright racism, but the way they crazily embrace some doofus freak is almost certainly built around the fact he’s a successful athlete and still a white dude. English football has that as well, in the basic-looking good ol’ English player who quietly just plays along at a highly competent level for a supporter’s favorite club. At one like Man City, there’s so much coming and going of high-priced global superstars, it’s harder to find such a character to channel your internalized xenophobia. Thankfully for Manchester City, Foden gives supporters that chance… just a boy from Stockport who joined the club at the age of 4. He’s a rare homegrown player for them, and native Englishman (which in this case means white, as that “native Englishman” doubles as exclusionary language, but in a way that’s easily deniable). Normally, you’d think this type of player would play their role in support and then be sold off to a second-tier Premier League club to cover the cost of importing global superstars on an annual basis. But Foden’s flirted with being too good to get rid of, contributing more and more. His big breakout moment was probably last October during the Manchester derby’s home match for City, where he got his first career hat trick, at the tender age of 22, in City’s 6-3 stomping of United. The racialists loved him even more after that day.

#14: NATHAN AKÉ – I like Aké simply because of him and Virgil van Dijk being such a fun and threatening combo on the Dutch national team defensive line. Because of this I mostly try to overlook the fact Aké plays for Manchester City, even though he in fact does. He got a contract extension after the Champions League win, and seems to work well with Akanji and plug and playable along multiple positions on defense. Aesthetically speaking though, his dreadlocked appearance likely reached its pinnacle (thus far) during a loan period at Watford years ago. Such a handsome figure’s natural shine is dulled by that Man City crypto blue color.

#15: AYMERIC LAPORTE – Laporte has been a center back at Man City since the winter transfer window in 2018, and one thing has become clear about Aymeric Laporte since then… he’s gonna get injured. In fact, his existence seems to be intertwined with John Stones at this point, where Stones doesn’t seem quite perfect enough, so Laporte starts clawing his way back into starting role, but then Laporte gets injured, and Stones regains control. It’s been this multi-season ebb and flow with them. Thus far, Laporte hasn’t gone away, but with Rúben Dias and now the pending signing of Joško Gvardiol from RB Leipzig, Laporte will be expendable, and likely elsewhere. Going back to La Liga and his old club Athletic Bilbao seems likely.

#16: JULIÁN ÁLVAREZ – An Argentine forward who, though he technically signed with Man City in January of 2022, joined the club at the same time as Erling Haaland, so despite being a big deal himself, was buried behind the far bigger deal. Álvarez came over from River Plate, and was left there on loan to finish out the first half of the year with River. He also was a young member of the Argentine national team that finally won the World Cup with Messi. Álvarez contributed 17 goals last season across all competitions, and that was usually as a sub. He’s got Copa Libertadores titles with River Plate, plus the World Cup, and last season’s treble at Man City, so it’s hard not to assume that even though he’s a supporting cast member in some of those situations, there’s a stroke of universal benevolence that comes with Julián Álvarez being on the squad. He’s only 23, so it’ll be interesting to see how his career progresses. He’s exactly the type of player I’d like to be seeing running wild at like AC Milan or Napoli (the classical young Argentine goal, although to be fair to the spirit of Maradona, young Álvarez comes from a bastard River Plate lineage, not the wild and wonderful realm of Boca Juniors).

#17: JOÃO CANCELO – Cancelo became expendable by Pep Guardiola’s standards, and was loaned to Bayern Munich the second half of last season, so missed out on all the big treble run. There’s been a lot of speculation and talk around Cancelo though, with some big clubs rumored to be interested (Barcelona, Arsenal), and Cancelo looking good during the preseason. But the fact of the matter is if you’ve fallen out of favor with that egotistical little shit Pep Guardiola, you’re not coming back. Look at how he treated Yaya Touré. Cancelo will be better off elsewhere, and somewhere else will be better off with him.

#18: RICO LEWIS – Rico Lewis got 14 appearances in Premier League matches last season, despite still only being 18. Still way down the depth chart, wearing the extraordinarily high number 82, but having joined the club at the age of 8, they’ll keep developing him, seemingly with a loan to a high profile Championship club this season, with both the recently relegated Southampton and Leeds United high on the youngster to help them claw their way back into the Premier League from the 46-match long (and even longer if you go the playoff route) Championship scrum.

#19: STEFAN ORTEGA – Ortega fills the complicated role of a high-caliber second GK, which is always a weird puzzle to figure out, because nobody at the highest level wants to know they’re gonna get like 5 starts a season, with 3 of them being the Carabao Cup. Ortega had quietly excelled for his youth club, Arminia Bielefeld, in the Bundesliga for a couple seasons, doing well enough against top competition that Man City brought him in last season on a free transfer as cover for Ederson. He’s already 30, so not a young back-up, but Ortega excelled in his limited playing time, including appearing in every match of City’s FA Cup run, and only allowing a single goal in six FA Cup matches. Throw in a handful of PL matches to give Ederson a rest, and being able to handle lesser competition during Champions League group stage matches, and Ortega’s about as perfect a second GK as a club like Man City could hope for. He’s a natural beta but with alpha performance capabilities, and will likely help the club make a profit off him when they sell him back to like RB Leipzig next summer.

#20: SERGIO GÓMEZ – Gómez spent 8 years in Barcelona’s incomparable youth academy, before moving to Germany and joining Borussia Dortmund as a teenager. Even with Dortmund, he was sold off to Anderlecht in Belgium, rather than held onto, and after a strong season there, was part of Man City’s influx of players last summer, in fact making his club debut as sub for Erling Haaland last August. Gómez doesn’t have the massive presence Haaland does, but can hold his own. Somehow though, it feels like this is a bigger stage than he needs to be on, and he’d be better served on personal level getting regular playing time somewhere, with La Liga seemingly making perfect sense. But Manchester City can afford to stockpile players, not only for themselves, but to deny others, and I often think about multiverse string theory, and what might have been if a guy like Gómez never left Barca’s youth academy back in the day, and remained there instead of getting lost wandering the Earth looking for a metaphysical home that never does ultimately arrive.

#21: COLE PALMER – Perhaps Cole Palmer is the next Phil Foden, being another young English dude who was a childhood fan of the club, and joined their youth system before the age of 8, progressing up through the ranks, and having a bit of a breakout last season with 25 appearances across all competitions, including 14 PL appearances. He’s also the rare occurrence of an English footballer with a name that sounds like he could be a third-generation Nascar driver.

#22: KALVIN PHILLIPS – In some sense, Kalvin Phillips is a similar story to Grealish’s, as Phillips was adored at Leeds United, where he came up as a youth player, and was a key presence on Marcelo Bielsa’s squad that rose from the Championship back to the Premier League for the first time in nearly two decades. But as Leeds navigated the Premier League and wages, his shine was bound to be cashed out for a big transfer fee while they could. He hasn’t really settled into his role as sub, and the sporadic appearances have to make it hard to find a rhythm as a player. I don’t see him following Grealish’s growth into regular player, and Phillips instead seems like the classic player who can thrive at a smaller PL club (or in that weird tweener state of those half-dozen clubs that bounce between Championship and PL all the time, like Norwich City, Burnley, and Fulham), but just gets lost somewhere like the Etihad. And sadly, with him having left last season, Leeds struggled and dropped back to the Championship again themselves (so don’t be surprised if Phillips doesn’t rejoin them on some sort of loan mid-season if he continues to struggle, and Leeds is chasing getting re-promoted).

#23: RAHEEM STERLING – Yes, due to the nature of our football metaphysics methodology, players who are gone still show up on the 25-man list. The minutes accumulated still count for something, and I’m not really into that “let’s do an annual look at the current roster” because there’s no doubt the old faces that took up a lot of space still carry weight. And despite being a fairly prolific goal-scorer in this time at Man City, he somehow still wasn’t the dominant figure the club desired, which made way for the transfer of Haaland, which gave them exactly what they wanted. Sterling could score goals, but he never broke anybody’s spirit, and there’s actually a big difference there. Goal scorers can aid successful clubs, but you need a spirit breaker to win trebles. It sort of makes perfect sense that the by all means good but not quite great Raheem Sterling is now settled in at Chelsea, where club stature matches individual perfectly.

#24: GABRIEL JESUS – Jesus (along with next name Oleksandr Zinchenko) made the move to Arsenal last season, as the final piece of Mikel Arteta’s Operation Gabriel, accumulating as many Brazilian dudes named Gabriel as possible. The magic worked briefly, but failed to deliver the PL title that was teased early in the season. Jesus had a great first season with the Gunners, despite being injured for three months towards the end of the season. In fact, Jesus’s injury, along with William Saliba on defense, can’t be overlooked as to why Arsenal crumbled in the end.

#25: OLEKSANDR ZINCHENKO – Our last name on the list spent a half decade toiling amongst Man City’s always crowded roster. Shockingly, Zinchenko is still only 26, so plenty of tread left on them tires, especially considering he was never a full-time starter at the Etihad. In fact, after his move to Arsenal last season, he got more PL appearances in a single season than he ever had with Man City. Of course, Arsenal had that fabulous collapse last season, letting Man City surpass them in the spring stretch, so Zinchenko’s failure demons may be speaking more loudly now. A Ukrainian, and despite Russian being his first language, when the invasion of Ukraine took place, he posted on social media that he wished for Vladimir Putin to suffer a most painful death. He, of course, deleted the post after handlers were like “what the fuck bro?” But a sort of ugly dirt dog Ukrainian fuck is kinda perfect for Arsenal, and never really meshed with the Man City aesthetic entirely.

25-Man Metaphysical Roster: MANCHESTER CITY FC

{I decided to keep it positive}

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football metaphysics methodology utilizing dork methodology of minutes played over the past 100 club competitive club matches to determine which 25 players constitute the strongest psychic force on a club’s current trajectory. Then intuitive analysis is conducted utilizing football metaphysics, performed from an un-American soccer fan’s perspective. We do this every 1st and 15th of the month, cycling through the 20 clubs currently in the English Premier League, because it is the top domestic league based in an English-speaking country, which as un-American miscreants, we were all born to be saddled with this limited, segmented tongue of the global colonizer, oppressor, and capitalizer. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the USA most prominently, where we live. And yet, it is really important we clarify we hate English, and also America. Maybe we hate ourselves. Our panel consists of chairman Raven Mack, director tecnico Paul Robertson, and director rudo Neil Bulson Our individual contributions to this 5000 words of gibberish will be noted by our name at the end of the blurb. If you enjoy this absolutely free internet content from an un-American soccer perspective, venmo us tips @ravenmack23. You may also enjoy the Sportsball 69 podcast.]

Discussing the football metaphysics of Manchester City requires the ability to pan out beyond the immediacy of nowness which most of our consumer-based world systems depend upon. In the here and now, Manchester City is a Big Six club, and not only that but one of the most dominant, who seems to be faltering because they’re in second place, not their destined first. They have everything they could ever want, with the chosen manager in Pep Guardiola being given access to any chosen player he wants every transfer window. And yet, in the short history of the Premier League (since the early ‘90s), Man City’s been relegated twice, and even dropped all the way to the third tier in 1998-99. It’s easy to forget that actually other clubs you wouldn’t think of automatically like West Ham and Everton, and even Aston Villa and Newcastle United have had more seasons in the Premier League than Man City. But ever since that Emirate money got involved in 2008, benefitting from Sheikh Mansour’s interest (and nutmegging financial fair play rules), they’ve appeared to be impervious and unparalleled.

And this is one of the greatest things about football culture, because in many nations, clubs have existed longer than the nation, and in fact might have outlasted multiple ruling governments over the course of the history of club. Manchester City was an original Premier League club, so part of that incorporation of traditional football culture into a marketing entity. But even more so they’ve become one of the most obvious faces of post-Soviet collapse and global oligarchical capitalism, where oil money flows directly into clubhouse, and so long as this era of global existence remains intact, Man City will likely appear impervious and unstoppable. Thus it becomes a thing where you have a club with few real old school supporters so much as bandwagon brand fans, who want to root for the probable winner. And on the opposite end (where I am), you have people who support the traditional belief systems of football gods, and hope for instances like last spring’s shock loss in the Champions League semifinals; or this season where not only are they not in their expected first place in Premier League table, but they’ve fallen far behind Liverpool, all things considered. And they do seem jinxed by the football gods. The 3-2 loss at Norwich earlier this season was shock enough, but the 0-2 home loss to Wolverhampton earlier this month has to be seen as more than shock. That’s a defibrillated jolt that perhaps all the global economic grease in the world can’t make you actually be the best. It is a suggestion that there still are football gods, and they haven’t entirely turned a blind eye to the top leagues.

So these are the 25 men who have had the most minutes in past 100 competitive fixtures for this Manchester City Football Club, and thus have the highest metaphysical stake in their current trajectory. But make no mistake about it, this list is mostly hired guns, outside assassins brought in. And Pep Guardiola is their Chief Operating Officer. They are Football Manager with an editor that has given them unlimited funds, and a couple magic sponges. So we football metaphysicians cast our opposing spells and hope the gods still hear us, which they do, because gods can never be entirely bought, as gods are always of the Earth, not the banks… [RAVEN]

#1: EDERSON (up from #2 last time Manchester City was metaphysically ranked on 01-Nov-2018; thus his FIRST METAPHYSICAL STAR!) – Much as I despise Manchester City (such that, for all its snarky triteness, I have to think not to write “Man Shitty”), it would be very, very difficult not to like Ederson. There are several goalkeeping archetypes in world football: the bookish English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh asshole with a stock portfolio and a place in law school when he retires, the unhinged Slav born to sleep off a fentanyl hangover between two ass-length purple-fabric braided-hair West Virginia weasel-girls at a gathering of the Juggalos, the Francophone white-skinned cyborg genetically engineered by Dr. King Leopold V in a high-tech breeding facility constructed underneath a mountain in Algeria. Ederson here is in the South American Ogre goalkeeping class, hulking and squint-eyed, perpetually lurching about in a fog of sex stank and coca juice drool. He’s even got that prominent neck tattoo that was surely expensive as fuck, but yet it still manages to look (commendably) like complete shit. As I’ve stated previously, I tend to mistrust the raw abilities and playing consistency of goalkeepers from countries usually associated with creative-attacking football (Argentine and Brazil, specifically). Yet Ederson here seems to be more than ok, despite being saddled with that abominable “sweeper-keeper” tag, which just by its presence ensures that he will fuck up horribly in an important clutch match at some point. Reading that Ederson was one of the most expensive goalkeeping signings of all time (upwards of 30 million pounds) further highlights the mad money glut of the EPL. Don’t get me wrong, I think that the goalkeeping position is the Peter-Rock position of any competitive squad and clubs skimp on it at their peril. But Ederson is nowhere near in the class of cat-got-into-your-Angel-Dust stash dependable shot stopper that would justify half of that fee. You could probably buy 3-4 very solid keepers out there with what Man Shitty outlayed for Ederson. [PAUL]

#2: KYLE WALKER (up from #4 last time) – I wrote about Kyle Walker last time for Tottenham, and I don't really feel like writing about him again. I mean, I guess I should write about him better, since he's the #2 man for Man City at this point, holding things down on that defensive line ever since Vincent Kompany turned into a broken man. [RAVEN]

#3: RAHEEM STERLING (same as last time) – There was a time when Raheem Sterling was my Spirit Warrior, but then he decided to fuck around on me, and now he is a filthy rat and he has lost the spirit wars. That may not be fair, but fuck fair, this shitty little idiot is a wretched thing. He could have been glorious, but instead he chose this path and I want to see him weep and beg for forgiveness before Klopp gives him a gentle kiss on the forehead and then flushes this sewer rat down the toilet. It didn’t have to be like this, Raheem, but it is like this now, and there is no room for you in Valhalla. I am Krishna, and I am offended that I had to use this Neil character to put my eyes on you, and now Neil is Krishna and has no time for a sewer rat like you, Raheem Sterling. [NEIL]

#4: BERNARDO SILVA (up from #10 last time) – Silva was key to Man City (and Pep Guardiola) success from the moment the midfielder made the move from his native Portugal. He was instrumental in five trophies over his first two seasons, which allowed him to get settled in enough to make a problematic racial tweet about Benjamin Mendy, who of course is only his friend, and not somebody he would say racist things about. I always love that defense, because it doesn’t admit to the racial tones of the thing that was problematic, but instead assumes one wouldn’t do racist things to their friends, which seems to me to suggest they might still do racist things to non-friends. I don’t know. Racism is weird, and complicated, and it’s easy enough to be racist without meaning to that it’s easier to just accept it, and do better. I mean if you compare an African friend to a cartoonish chocolate monster, maybe you didn’t mean to consciously be racist, but there’s a good amount of sub-conscious racism involved in doing that, maybe just say, “Okay, I fucked up,” and move on. Nobody’s saying you’re hitler, just that you did something racist. Anyways, Silva has been swatted on the fanny by UEFA over the racist tweet, and I’m sure we’ll all move on. Pep Guardiola could’ve squashed it right away had he just had Silva apologize instead of doubling down on how it wasn’t racist. The logo for Conguitos itself is racist, so comparing anybody to it is going to be dabbling in racism. I think that’s the key here – everybody feels like they’re being accused of being the worst racist in history, when a lot of times people are just saying, “whoa, don’t dabble in racism” which is a good thing to say because that’s a bad look. (Also perhaps this could go without saying, but your African friends don’t look like racist caricatures; you have just been conditioned to think a certain way, which causes you to make that connection. Disentangle that shit, bitch.) [RAVEN]

#5: ILKAY GUNDOGAN (up from #11 last time) – Fuck—here I am having to write about a Turko-German dude what with Trump and Erdogan doing Midnight Express sex-game international geopolitics role playing recently. I’ve long been fascinated by the socio-historical connections between Germany and Turkey. Based on what I know of World War I, it seems like the slow-collapse Ottoman Empire was looking towards Imperial Germany as a model for holding itself together, up to and including being Germany’s best bud in that there conflict—and I’m admittedly going to respect any country that damn-near suffocated Winston Churchill with its collective national stank ballsack (see: Gallipoli). But then I also remember reading about the rise (resurrection? reveal?) of a new far-right in 1990s Germany and that there was this popular underground pre-Internet floppy-disk video game wherein the Fourth Reich was tasked with genociding (via concentration camp and gas chamber) Turks (not Jews, as the Third Reich had tried to do the first time around). Apparently, this choice was an amalgamation of not being able to outright have the victims be Jews, to skirt some heavy penalty legal repercussions, and that significant Turkish immigration to Germany in the 1990s was viewed by the more assholish elements of white German society as a problem. So, go ahead and make shitty video games about exterminating Turks. I’m guessing Ilkay here grew up with that environment simmering around him. And man, what is it with these Turkish-German dudes kissing Erdogan’s ring? Seems like there’s a solid 8-10 Mussolini-style “strongmen” dictators flexing the world over, and if I’m being honest, it’s mighty disgusting seeing sports figures (footballers, MMA lunkheads, etc.) essentially swearing their fealty to some puffed up dickhead. Y’all acting like white American baseball players and concussion ball coaches with this shit. Don’t act like white American baseball players and concussion ball coaches. Anyway, Gundogan seems like that oh-so-necessary box-to-box move-and-harry central midfielder that’s a necessity for any balanced club. I see that he came to ManShitty after a long stint at Borussia Dortmund, which makes me feel bad for that club. Seems like their just the upper-best-of-the-rest feeder club for the EPL at this point (Klopp, et. al.). And yet they won the Champions League themselves back in 1997. Man [Ure/Shitty], do I hate the EPL. [PAUL]

#6: DAVID SILVA (same as last time) – David Silva's time as Premier League premier club top midfielder is coming to an end. He's still the club captain, but that time may come to an end as well, and at this point they are likely just trying to ride things out with everybody (Pep, Silva, the rest of the posse) looking good. Silva's already been lined up as David Beckham's big major transfer for the expansion Inter Miami club in the MLS, furthering American soccer football as the retirement destination of big names who want to help progressive neoliberal Americans with hella discretionary income cosplay a real football league. [RAVEN]

#7: AYMERIC LAPORTE (up from #14 last time) – Alongside Ederson, another ManShitty player that I tentatively can’t help but like. Got a name like either some 70s/80s French filmmaker churning out the brooding nihilism through hot pale women with hairy armpits who can’t be bothered to wear clothes 18 hours out of every day or the head of some south France medieval penitent sect into self-flagellation and omni-directional orgies. Basque origins and time spent at Atletico Bilbao are of course gonna lead to associations with another central defender, Goiko the Butcher—the dude that almost wasted Maradona before he could become MARADONA. To be clear, I don’t condone football players trying to wreck the careers of other players (well, mostly, because Gazza and Landon Donovan could’ve/should’ve got fucked), but for the genius of Diego to transcend, you definitely need an absolute animal of a central defender/defensive midfielder a hair-breadth away from taking all that they hold dear. Playing for ManShitty, I really doubt that Laporte has that kind of psychic weight in him. [PAUL]

#8: SERGIO AGUERO (up from #9 last time) – So I have to admit I actually enjoy watching Aguero, because he’s a very non-European striker who can’t really avoid just fucking daggering other human beings with goals. Aguero was not reared in European academies, and in fact came from the streets of Buenos Aires, actually being the youngest player to crack Argentina’s top division back in the day, breaking the record that had been set famously a few decades before by Diego Maradona. And thus far, Aguero has had the loyalty of a global southerner, only playing for Atletico Madrid and now Man City. It’s always so interesting to note the style of play for guys from different parts of the world and the various environments that entails. Aguero will not stop being Aguero. There seemed to be a period of learning to accept each other betwixt him and Pep Guardiola, and I’m not sure that’s completely settled, because Guardiola has a European ego, and expects everything to bend to his way – maybe not break, but definitely bend. Aguero is gonna be Aguero, and even at 31, you have to let him be that. And on top of that, despite the manufactured greatness of this Man City club, even within that context, they’re greatest footballing gods spirit warrior moment was the last day of Aguero’s first season, when he nailed the winning goal in stoppage time to seal the title. He is a rare old world god of football still trying to find a way to shine in global consumer systems, where old world gods are not as worshipped as golden idols, which must always be shiny and new. I really look forward to whatever the next phase of Aguero’s career, and holy fuck I hope I am laying about on my couch watching him play in Copa Libertadores five or six years from now as an Argentine swan song back in his native land. [RAVEN]

#9: NICOLAS OTAMENDI (down from #5 last time; plus ONE METAPHYSICAL STAR previously, for Manchester City on 15-Nov-2017) – Another north-of-20-million bank draft, another player of recognized quality. But no soul that I can see. Not that Nick-O here doesn’t have one, but that if he does it will never, ever, never see the light of soul-day in Manchester. Though I do read that Otamendi was willing to play at right back for the national team, such is his devotion to the Argentine cause. I watched that Maradona HBO documentary the other night, and while it was just ok, it did get me to thinking about my perceptions of players dedication to their national squads. We hem and haw and bullshit in these here screeds about wanting to see this or that player, with the necessary lineal eligibility, turn out for a country other than the one of his birth. But truth be told, I don’t really know how much any of it matters to European-based players anymore. I have no concrete evidence, but it’s difficult not to sense that most players just want the exposure of playing for a highly ranked national team and any other considerations are secondary at best. Relatedly, players with no real affinity-connections to a national squad will turn out when they seem that they have no other international options (for instance, a current regular Scotland international that was ignored for years and almost threw in his lot with the USMNT because his grandmother was born there and stayed for maybe five minutes before moving back to Canada/Scotland—and damn, talk about a footballing rock and proverbial hard-place). But 1) back in the day (1980s, maybe 90s) players really seemed to give a damn and international competitions seemed to be taken hella serious, even to the occlusion of club football; and 2) South American players, for whatever reason, seemed to be DOWN especially for repping their national teams. Maybe Maradona’s spirit warrior decimation of England in 1986 forever linked Argentine players to the national team—as if you cannot ever disrespect/reject the calling because of it. The single greatest sporting moment of a white-ass colonial power getting comprehensively wrecked will do that. [PAUL]

#10: FERNANDINHO (down from #1 last time; thus has ONE METAPHYSICAL STAR previously) – This Brazilian midfielder has had a weird career. The meat of his footballing life wasn’t played in Brazil or in England or Spain or France, but in the Ukraine, where he was considered one of the best foreigners in that crazy cat of a country. With Shakhtar Donetsk he spent eight years living it up as a Brazilian sex god in the Ukraine, which means he must have plowed through their spectacular women, living as a bronze king in this anything goes country. His black Brazilian blood mixed with girls who look like exotic panthers like Mila Kunis or Milla Jovovich could have created a perfect new race, but instead he decided to come to England, where everything is pale white and limp. There is Spirit Warrior energy in there somewhere, but he made a poor choice and that’s a goddamn shame. [NEIL]

#11: OLEKSANDR ZINCHENKO (up from #20 last time) – Hockey name, what the fuck? [RAVEN]

#12: KEVIN DE BRUYNE (down from #8 last time) – Like Alderweireld at Spurs, here we have another white Belgian dude that I’m going to dislike. In fact, I pretty much hate De Bruyne. Even though he’s Belgian, I tend to lump him in with the likes of John Stones and Harry Kane—footballers that seem somehow Extra White. I read this popular culture/film studies monograph once that rather convincingly talked about how Americans, while very much enmeshed in our own white supremacist imperial maintenance and ambitions still had a mistrust (contempt even) for this perceived extreme white “aryan” European-ness. [Neal (not this one) King’s Heroes in Hard Times—I can’t believe I’m actually putting a fucking scholarly citation in this shit] It’s why, supposedly, Gary Busey (and now his son Jake) got traction playing arch-villains. It’s also probably why that fair-pale dude that got his start on Friday Night Lights is now getting paid for playing contemptable sociopaths on Breaking Bad and Black Mirror. So maybe I am pop-culture poisoned into to disliking De Bruyne on that count. But all that said, he also reminds me (with a more than passing resemblance) to one of the shithead nazi punks that infested my high school back in the day—a dude that we mutually probably came closest to incarceration over some heavy violence we may have visited on each other. Seriously, I tried to set up a hillbilly feud-grade family ambush on his ass once. So also not helping my perceptions of a dude that, according to his bio, may have a pretty direct and recent connection to African colonialism (his mom was born there). But in keeping with my wack metrics for de-colonialist metaphysics, if Kev was tearing up in midfield for Burundi in the African Cup of Nations, I’d probably be positively impressed. I realize that makes no goddamned sense, but my heart wants a jumbled up world. Come to think of it, the only in-real-life Belgian person I’ve ever known was in college, some Tilda Swinton-looking older arty-woman that was best friends/bi-sexual buddies with this girl I was seeing. They totally tried to get some threesome action going, but I was painfully yokel-ignorant in my youth—like what fool questions mid-buck-naked sex suggestion that said Belgian friend should be called over to come hangout because she was “flirting with us all night”? Shaking my damn head. So back to De Bruyne (but I guess we never left)—supposedly he’s one of the top ten players in world football, but he’s a pasty-ass Belgian white dude that plays for Manchester City. The only positive thing I can say about him is that he indirectly reminded me of a threesome that I almost had some 20 years ago (which probably would’ve been pretty damn hot, because one of the women was Mediterranean-heritage and thick and the other was all Belgian and pale and thin-fit, so that contrast—that aforementioned “jumbled world” I’m wanting, sounds sweet). [PAUL]

#13: RIYAD MAHREZ (up from #22 last time; also previously ranked #9 for Leicester City on 15-Jan-2019) – As an avid follower of African national football, I was on the Mahrez bandwagon when he was at Leicester. Algerian football tends towards brutality on the back end, but is boosted by the flair of guys like Mahrez up front. In fact, the season after Leicester one the PL, I was pretty amped to see both Mahrez and Islam Slimani at Leicester, but they couldn’t recreate the lightning in a bottle of the previous season. That Mahrez/Jamie Vardy combo remains an insanely scrappy all-time striker combo. When the Mahrez-to-Man City talk started happening, it made perfect sense, but also felt exactly like when Wilfried Bony was fucking domineering the Earth at Swansea City, went to Man City, and was relegated to sitting around, losing his fire, and plummeting back to mortal existence. I feared the same for Mahrez at Man City, but somehow he’s been able to maintain fire. Perhaps that was the benefit of the shared strike force with Vardy, learning to be the man without being the man, so to speak. And as Man City has struggled (lol, only in second), Mahrez has stepped as the go-to guy. He might be their savior, which is extra interesting at global metaphysical level, because Liverpool is led by Mo Salah, and Egypt and Algeria have a notorious football blood feud. [RAVEN]

#14: GABRIEL JESUS (down from #13 last time) – Shit, when a Brazilian shows up named Jesus you have to consider strong Spirit Warrior potential. And this dude who grew up playing street football is now getting a chance to do it big boy style at Man City. He even wears the number 33 because that’s the age that Jesus, the other Jesus, you know, the good Jewish one, was crucified. I can get down with that because I too thought that I would die at 33, but I didn’t. I’m 39 now, and I have moved past Jesus and become Krishna. But Gabriel Jesus is a dude who can certainly channel deep Spirit Warrior energy, because Jesus was a Spirit Warrior. Krishna is a Spirit Warrior. I’m Neil and also Krishna and a Spirit Warrior, so I can tell when these dudes come around. And that is what Gabriel Jesus here brings to Manchester City. [NEIL]

#15: LEROY SANE (down from #7 last time) – Leroy Sane is a German, who could also rep Senegal if he wanted to, as his dad is a Senegalese footballer, and his mom is a German Olympian, so this dude has a lot of strong blood flowing through him. That he chose Germany to represent speaks poorly to his Spirit Warrior energies. I have nothing against Leroy Sane. A dude follows his mama’s way more often than he does his father’s and so Leroy Sane is a good German.  He is also a member of Manchester City, which means that he is doubly vexed. For there are no good Germans, and there are no good Manchester City people either. That he has chose this life like the sewer rat Raheem Sterling is a shame. So fuck Leroy Sane. The Senegalese don’t need your poison. [NEIL]

#16: JOHN STONES (down from #12 last time) – I will be honest, I am the last person to finish my part for this write-up and I'm not feeling it. I was gonna write a long thing about how many trophies I won with John Stones in FM15, which is still the version I play because the clutch hasn't gone out in it yet. But then when i thought "stones" I just wanted to listen to U.G.K., so I did. And I don't plan on stopping. [RAVEN]

#17: VINCENT KOMPANY (down from #15 last time) – Kompany was once the main dude at Man City, a hero to their legions of fake ass fans. But injuries seemed to chase him, and age started creeping in, and it became an amazing feat if you had Vincent Kompany in the XI for two months straight. He became a hobbled version of himself, though still a club leader (allegedly). He did help them win their domestic treble last season, which was sort of a swan song/fitness test for Kompany, but it became clear his best days were behind him. That meant it was time for a return home, which he did, signing on to be Anderlecht’s player-manager back in Belgium. However, they started this season’s campaign with their worst beginning in two decades, so Kompany resigned from managerial duties and is now just a player. That’s gotta be a weird situation, though he has retained his captain’s armband. There’s no denying his greatness as a defender in his prime, and how instrumental he was for some of Man City’s high points. He also joined Man City in that initial rush of signings after the Abu Dhabi money got infused into the club, so had very much been the face of that era for the club. Perhaps that’s had an effect on the squad as well, and is part of why they seem to be struggling, relatively speaking. But also I am a sucker for dudes who begin somewhere in a real life, transcend their origins and blow up on the world stage, as Kompany did, only to return home, as he has done at Anderlecht, where he began his career at 17, after joining their youth academy at 14. And to be honest, despite his almost comical ability to always get injured, I liked Kompany too. This Belgian golden age of players was led by him as well, and that’s been a fun bunch to watch. But age tombstone piledrives all of us eventually, whether we want to sell for it or not. [RAVEN]

#18: DANILO (down from #17 last time) – Another Brazilian, Danilo has already moved on to Juventus, leaving Manchester like any right minded dude should do. He is now in Italy, where his caramel flesh can mingle with the dark exoticos that mingle with the Moorish when you get to Sicily. All to make a glorious new hue of human flesh, golden and dark, not like the shriveled up pink people in Manchester. Danilo has a chance to make a real life for himself now that he has escaped the pink people, but the pink people hang on like parasites and it will be interesting to see how the Spirit Warrior energy gets mixed and fucked with here. [NEIL]

#19: RODRIGO – Rodrigo was Man City’s most recent “record transfer fee”, to be broken next transfer window most likely. Actually, let’s recap record transfer fees for this club since the emirate money came into play. First Robinho came from Real Madrid for 32.5 million ampersands. (I am a fucking American so I don’t have the pound sign and my pound sign is now a hashtag, so I’m calling it an ampersand.) That was an English record. Then July of 2011, Sergio Aguero came over from Atletico Madrid for 38 million ampersands; followed by Raheem Sterling in July of 2015 for 44 million ampersands, Keven De Bruyne from Wolfsburg August 2015 for 54 million ampersands. Things settled until Pep came into town, and January 2018, he got Aymeric Laporte for 57 million ampersands from Athletic Bilbao, Riyad Mahrez from Leicester for 60 million ampersands, and the Rodrigo this past July for 62.8, like I said. Also he used to be called just Rodri but now is Rodrigo. Rodri seems like a stupid thing to call an expensive human, tbh. [RAVEN]

#20: PHIL FODEN (up from #24 last time) – Foden has set a lot of those "youngest English player to ever feature in a Champions League knockout round away on a Wednesday afternoon in history" type things, but also he is at Man City, which means he is doomed. Of course, Pep be saying shit like "he's gonna be our boy for the next decade" but how the fuck can Pep even say that? Few people manage that long, much less a guy like Pep who will get bored if they dominate or get fired if they do anything less than dominate. I imagine Foden will eventually have a long illustrious stint at Arsenal, and then finish out with like Southampton or some shit. But the great thing is he's a Stockport boy, so you know there's fucking weirdo Hatters supporters for Stockport County who have Foden on their Football Manager Stockport County, winning the FA Cup, sitting around naked with a towel under their ass on their shitty computer desk chair so their stink ass doesn't make it worse than it already is. WAIT A SECOND ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME? [RAVEN]

#21: BENJAMIN MENDY (down from #19 last time) – Seemingly talented left-back (a position, as mentioned earlier, in which a truly capable player is as rare as the storied hen’s teeth), that’s struggling to establish himself in the Man Shitty team owing to some ugly injury problems. Like Ederson, he’s another player that for all his seeming talent, I can’t wrap my mind around Man Shitty putting 50 million pounds on the table. Dude is in his mid-twenties early peak, with only a handful of international caps and one exceptional season at Monaco (who, like Borussia Dortmund, seem to get strip-mined of talent on the regular). I realize that Man Shitty are but the most egregious example of a “business model” run rampant in the EPL (buy and horde all the best established and speculated talent in world football with a septic-flood stream of television dollars, American Running Dog Capitalist/Russian Oligarch/Middle Eastern Oil Sheikh cash, and merchandising deals—all whilst treating their fans like so many half-dissolved urinal cakes) but I’m desperately hoping that this is the season their shit, in particular, comes completely apart—and by “apart” I mean that they come in second to Liverpool (have to have reasonable goals in this age of nihilism). Mendy is also in the news of late because he (supposedly) shrugged his shoulders over teammate Silva social media comparing him to some Spanish variant of the damn British golliwog racist mascot. As an Unamerican American, I can’t pretend to know the complete dynamics of European racist iconography—although I have a notion that as much as Euro-folk tsk-tsk (often understandably) over American savagery and general jacked-uppedness, this is one particular discursive field where they need some hard self-examination. But shit, that one Griezmann dude pulled blackface more thoroughly than a “progressive” Virginia governor (in other words, Canadian Prime Minister-Class) and he suffered next to no fallout. I bet the Touré brothers would’ve set aside their customary professional sweetness and beat his ass, or at least I’d hope so. [PAUL]

#22: FABIAN DELPH (down from #16 last time) – Brought up through the English system, Fabian Delph first poked out at Leeds United before going to Aston Villa. From there he became a Manchester City man, and now has been sold out to Everton, making him a barely prized whore. I also see that he has a DUI or whatever the fuck it’s called in England, drink driving if my wiki skills are on point. Drink driving is no good, but if you make a game out of it, maybe you might have something. Drink and then drive your ass off. That’s the game. It ain’t no joke. But sadly, for Fabian Delph, he is indeed a joke. [NEIL]

#23: JOAO CANCELO – I accidentally had Arijanet Muric on my list, and forgot to replace him with Joao Cancelo, so I’m just going to write about Muric instead. More Yugoslavian diaspora, again from Switzerland, as the young Muric grew up a Swiss. He played for the Montenegrin national team early on, but was one of the slew of dudes the Kosovan national team recruited as they gained UEFA recognition. Muric moved to the Kosovan team, and one of my many international preferences for the ultimate football club line-up is an eastern European (preferably Balkan) GK. Muric’s only 20, and got recalled from a loan last season as Claudio Bravo got thrust into a starting role, so Muric was the back-up, and also played in a number of League Cup matches. This season, he is on loan again, at the Championship with Nottingham Forest, but he will likely either be their GK of the future, or someone they cash out to a non-Big Six Premier League club at some point. And then eventually he’ll get to play for Qarabag or Astana or some cool ass sounding shit like that, where you know motherfuckers, despite being actual Caucasians, are not too goddamned white to serve goat. MORE GOAT, MOTHERFUCKERS. I WANT TO EAT ALL THE GOAT. [RAVEN] 

#24: CLAUDIO BRAVO (down from #18 last time) – I dig the grizzled old Chilean, who came up with Colo-Colo in his native home, with the nickname Condor Chico. (He does look about like a condor.) He played in Spain for almost a decade for Real Sociedad, before transferring to Barcelona, where he excelled for two seasons. This led to a transfer to Man City, but his transition to the English Premier League was unforgiving, as a couple high profile errors caused the failure demons to swirl, and the public to turn on him. With the younger, more promising Ederson just sitting there waiting to be played, it was only a gaffe or two more before ol’ Pep relegated Bravo to cup duty and backing up the younger Brazilian. I believe his contract runs out at the end of this season, so like with all South American players in their final playing days, I anxiously look forward to him in Copa Libertadores next year. (FYI, Copa Libertadores is far superior to UEFA Champions League, in my opinion; don’t at me.) [RAVEN]

#25: ERIC GARCIA – Eric Garcia is the perfect name for a tinder date, and god why do we do this every couple weeks? I am bored to death at work, but have to sit here because that’s what work is – being available to do shit for somebody else. Can’t society hurry up and end? Anyways, my perfect tinder date is a teen Spaniard, obviously brought in as Pep grooms him, for various things. In footballing terms, it is grooming a crew to be your back-up in the locker room, of same nation and language. But idk, look at Pep… could be grooming dudes for anything for all I know. I don’t trust Pep, like not at all. Little weasel-looking dudes with weirdo nicknames like “Pep” tend to be huge degenerates who also have large egos. One or the other may be tolerable in normal environment but a large ego that’s also a gigantic degenerate? That always ends horribly for everyone involved, though that type of person is also super Type A-plus and ends up being great things like the manager of Manchester City or President or discovers America or some fucked up shit that seems great but actually is not if you parse it all out and realize how many souls have to be stepped on to achieve it. [RAVEN]

25-Man Metaphysical Roster: Manchester City F.C.

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football dork methodology meant to establish a listing of players who have been most active for English Premier League teams in their past 100 non-friendly matches. Essentially, it is calculated by minutes played, but weighted towards most recent games. The end result is a listing of the 25 players in a team’s recent history who have had the largest hand on their metaphysical sporting trajectory. The English Premier League was chosen because it is the highest level of football played in an English speaking country, and I speak English. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the USA, where I fucking live. And yet still I should clarify I hate English, and also America. Thus maybe I hate myself. Should I not fail in maintaining my unpaid deadline, a new 25-Man Metaphysical Roster will appear on the 1st and 15th of every month.]

WORKING THROUGH A MISSED YEAR BECAUSE WE RE-LAUNCHING THIS BITCH ON JUNE 1ST, 2019!!! This would’ve been Manchester City’s listing which would’ve run on November 1, 2018.

#1: FERNANDINHO (up from #3 last time Manchester City was metaphysically ranked on 15-Nov-2017; also HIS FIRST METAPHYSICAL STAR)

#2: EDERSON (up from #16 last time)

#3: RAHEEM STERLING (up from #6 last time)

#4: KYLE WALKER (up from #21 last time; also previously ranked #24 for Tottenham Hotspur on 15-Oct-2018)

#5: NICOLAS OTAMENDI (down from #1 last time)

#6: DAVID SILVA (down from #4 last time)

#7: LEROY SANE (up from #8 last time)

#8: KEVIN DE BRUYNE (down from #2 last time)

#9: SERGIO AGUERO (down from #5 last time)

#10: BERNARDO SILVA (up from #24 last time)

#11: ILKAY GUNDOGAN (up from #22 last time)

#12: JOHN STONES (down from #7 last time)

#13: GABRIEL JESUS (same as last time)

#14: AYMERIC LAPORTE

#15: VINCENT KOMPANY (up from #20 last time)

#16: FABIAN DELPH (up from #19 last time)

#17: DANILO

#18: CLAUDIO BRAVO (down from #12 last time)

#19: BENJAMIN MENDY

#20: OLEKSANDR ZINCHENKO

#21: YAYA TOURE (down from #10 last time)

#22: RIYAD MAHREZ (previously ranked #4 for Leicester City on 15-Feb-2018)

#23: ELIAQUIM MANGALA

#24: PHIL FODEN

#25: GAEL CLICHY (down from #9 last time)