Manchester City's squad is fit to burst

Like a relentless monster always hunting for its latest feed, no sooner had Man City completed one multi-million pound deal they turned their attentions to another this week.

Aleksandar Kolarov completed a £17 million move from Lazio as the club's spending passed the £80 million mark this summer alone following the arrivals of Yaya Toure, David Silva and Jerome Boateng. Now there is talk of a huge £70 million offer for Fernando Torres, a £24 million deal for James Milner and a £26 million bid for Mario Balotelli.

Kolarov's arrival already brings Roberto Mancini's squad to a rather bloated 36. But new Premier League rulings coming in this season will force managers to name a squad of just 25.

You don't have to be a mathematician to work out that this will be a problem for Man City. Players such as Stephen Ireland, Micah Richards, Nedum Onuha and Michael Johnson, the jewels of the club's blossoming youth academy just a few years ago, have been sidelined by City's expensive imports and are already being nudged towards the exit door.

Now, with Mancini looking to lift the club up another level this year, players like Craig Bellamy and Joleon Lescott - big money buys last season - may be sacrificed in City's relentless quest for improvement. The Premier League betting odds suggest City will do well this season, but some at Eastlands will be frozen out.

Of course, the Europa League betting makes the side among the favourites for that tournament, and it could be Mancini uses it as an opportunity to give others a run out, although that's still unlikely to keep everyone happy.

However, getting rid of some of these players will be harder than perhaps thought, with the main reason being their extortionate wages. Bellamy is currently on £90,000 a week for example while Lescott takes home in excess of £100,000.

These players will not be willing to take a drop in pay just to play a bit more football, and if they think other clubs should pay them a similar amount they clearly haven't been watching the news for the past two years.

In these tough times, the burst Premier League bubble has forced clubs to take stock and make cutbacks. A modicum of normality is returning into transfer dealings, expect of course at City where all sense of financial reality will be thrown out of the window.

Of course, the cost of keeping players on the wage bill who aren't in the squad won't be an issue for the club's owners, but the corrosive effect of having unhappy players in the camp could harm City.

Mancini will need to do some serious juggling if he is to keep the egos happy in his expensively assembled dressing room and fulfil Sheikh Mansour's ambitions for silverware.