The £442million Man City have made from selling academy graduates under Pep Guardiola | OneFootball

But while rivals like Manchester United and Arsenal have struggled to raise funds in the transfer market, City’s net spend in recent years is comparatively low – thanks to offloading players for the right price.

The reigning Premier League champions have received considerable funds by offloading established big-name stars. Selling the likes of Raheem Sterling, Ferran Torres, Gabriel Jesus, Leroy Sane, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riyad Mahrez in recent years has helped raise transfer funds for Guardiola to refresh his squad, bringing in players like Jack Grealish and Josko Gvardiol.

They’ve also raised almost half a billion by selling academy graduates, often for relatively small fees – but it all adds up.

Cole Palmer, set to complete a £45million transfer to Chelsea, is set to become City’s all-time most expensive academy sale.

Other players – such as Romeo Lavia, Angelino and Brahim Diaz – brought in considerable funds before they ever really broke through at the Etihad.

There is some debate over how many of these players are strictly homegrown – Pedro Porro and Gavin Bazunu are two examples of players who made their senior debuts before joining City – but all of them honed their skills in City’s youth set-up, even if it was for a short while.

Thanks to the work of Twitter user @BlueCityBrain, we’ve broken down the full £442million that Man City have received by selling academy players since Guardiola took over in 2016.

Cole Palmer – Chelsea – £45m Kelechi Iheanacho – Leicester – £25m Romeo Lavia – Southampton – £22.5m Brahim Diaz – Real Madrid – £22m Angelino – RB Leipzig – £21.3m Jadon Sancho – Borussia Dortmund (plus Man Utd sell-on fee) – £21.2m James Trafford – Burnley – £19m Pedro Porro – Sporting Lisbon (plus Tottenham sell-on fee) – £17.4m Carlos Borges – Ajax – £17.2m Douglas Luiz – Aston Villa – £15m Gavin Bazunu – Southampton – £15m Shea Charles – Southampton – £15m Angus Gunn – Southampton – £13.5m Enes Unal – Villarreal – £12m Lukas Nmecha – Wolfsburg – £11.1m Jack Harrison – Leeds United – £11m Rabbi Matondo – Schalke – £10.25m Aaron Mooy – Huddersfield – £10m Samuel Udozie – Southampton – £10m Uriel Antuna – Chivas – £10m Felix Correira – Juventus – £9.5m Ivan Ilic – Hellas Verona – £9.5m Jason Denayer – Lyon – £9m Pablo Maffeo – Stuttgart – £8.8m Juan Larios – Southampton – £6m Darko Gyabi – Leeds United – £5m Ko Itakura – Borussia Monchengladbach – £5m Oliver Ntcham – Celtic – £4.5m Geronimo Rulli – Real Sociedad – £4.00m Seko Fofana – Udinese – £3.8m Manu Garcia – Sporting Gijon – £3.6m Aro Muric – Burnley – £3m Bersant Celina – Swansea – £3m Joshua Kayode – Shakhtar Donetsk – £3m Patrick Roberts – Sunderland – £3m Taylor Richards – Brighton & Hove Albion – £2.5m Benjamin Garre – Racing Club – £2m Tosin Adarabioyo – Fulham – £2m Thierry Ambrose – Metz – £1.8m Ruben Sobrino – Alaves – £1.75m Dire Mebude – Westerlo – £1.65m Pablo Mari – Flamengo – £1.3m CJ Egan-Riley – Burnley – £1m Jeremy Frimpong – Celtic – £1m Charlie McNeill – Man Utd – £750,000 Terence Kongolo – Hereenveen – £750,000 Tyler Fletcher – Man Utd – £630,000 Luca Barrington – Brighton – £500,000 Harvey Griffiths – Wolves – £350,000