Ruben Dias explains how squad overhaul has brought ‘hunger’ back to Manchester City

Ruben Dias has admitted Manchester City needed a huge overhaul to move on from their greatest generation and said their recent signings have given them an added hunger to win trophies.

Pep Guardiola broke up his treble-winning team by signing 13 players over three transfer windows in 2025 and 2026, at a cost of around £430m.

Meanwhile, some of City’s modern greats – and Dias’ long-time teammates – left, including Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker, Jack Grealish, Manuel Akanji and Ederson.

City’s new-look team could win their first piece of silverware together when they face Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday.

Defender Dias said: “Every player that came in, all of them kind of have this winning mentality. Independent of having won or not so much in the past, they come with this hunger. I feel like that's very much there to see, so that adds up to our purpose and it's just extra fuel.”

Guardiola has confirmed goalkeeper James Trafford will start at Wembley , ahead of another of last summer’s buys in Gianluigi Donnarumma, and while defender Marc Guehi is ineligible, a host of other recent recruits are in contention to figure, including Antoine Semenyo, Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders, Omar Marmoush, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Abdukodir Khusanov.

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City’s most successful side ever came to an end after a difficult season last year which included a run of nine defeats in 12 games and Dias felt change was required.

He explained: “We talked about it and it was something we did and I feel like it's taken a very much better route now and it was needed. So obviously lots of things changed after that period, we need to set the standard for a new season. It was needed and I felt like we did it at the right time.”

When Donnarumma arrived, his passing was deemed a weakness in his game by some onlookers but Dias said the Italian has been better with the ball at his feet than he expected.

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“I think he surprised everybody,” he said. “People talk so much these days and by the time he arrived here I'd heard a lot more talk than actually games that I've seen him play and I've obviously seen a lot of his games but I don't see every week. I was very quick to run into the fact that he’s not bad with his feet. Okay, Eddie [Ederson] was a different kind of style and obviously a different approach but he can still do everything we need.”