I don't see much difference in overall midfield quality (when you include depth) or that much difference in age profiles between us and City. Yet some believe our midfield needs managing and plans put in place to replace them now, whilst City are an unstoppable machine with their 30 something key players in midfield. The 2 things don't quite stack up to me.
I think there is a considerable difference
Firstly Man City don't have to plan or gamble they could wait for a midfield player to blossom (like potentially Declan Rice) and buy them at the peak of their value and pay (300k+) top wages, and if that player fails, spend big again the following summer, we can't and have to box clever, bring in younger players and think ahead. Some of our transfers might be bought a few yrs before they hit their peak, so we shouldn't wait for our talent to whither on the vine before we move, with this in mind
Our go to midfield is more than a shade down on overall quality vs theirs and on durability. None of Keita, henderson, fab or thiago have delivered 30 pl starts for Klopp, whereas Rodri, de bruyne and silva have each done this multiple times for guardiola.
You might say Klopp chooses to rotate in midfield, I think that is down to necessity as Gini hit 30+ pl starts almost every yr
Silva might hint he might leave every so often, but he signed a contract extension a few months ago, as usual City can pay their way out of trouble, we need to look ahead
