Manchester City players are regularly brought down in games due to their evasiveness and technical ability.
Pep Guardiola‘s squad is littered with stars who are light on their feet and possess great speed acceleration and dribbling, which makes them nightmares to deal with.
Jack Grealish is someone who is often brought down. The winger has a bit of a reputation as being a foul magnet, and he is very good ats shifting the ball away from a defender at the very last second.
The England international protects the ball really well, and is great at earning set-pieces for his team.
Often, Grealish finishes the season as City’s most fouled player. But that was not the case in 2023/24, although he did come close to the top of the list despite his lack of game time…
Phil Foden was officially the most fouled player at Man City in 2023/24
Grealish was fouled 76 times in 2023/24, which was a lot considering he spent a fair bit of time on the sidelines through injury.
As a result of him struggling for minutes due to injuries, he does not top the list of most fouls/free-kicks won for 2023/24.
And it also isn’t Jeremy Doku, a player who has certainly shown himself to be a real handful for City with his rapid acceleration and unpredictability.
The honour of most fouled player for 2023/24 at City goes to none other than Phil Foden, who often took up very dangerous positions in a central role. Foden played in the middle a lot in 2023/24, first getting a run of games when Kevin De Bruyne was out injured.
But he stayed central when the Belgian returned, and was often very slippery and evasive.
Foden proved very difficult for defenders to get a hold of, and as per mancity.com, he won 82 fouls across the season.
Foden the slippery customer
It is probably little surprise to see Foden topping this category for City, although Grealish came pretty close despite playing far fewer minutes than his teammate.
At this point, Foden is probably one of the most difficult players to get a hold of in the Premier League.
His awareness of what’s going on around him is second-to-none, and this often allows him to get the jump on his opponents. He is very quick, nimble and has fantastic balance, so it is little wonder he gets pulled down and pushed over a lot.
Clearly, opposition players realised what a huge threat he was in 2023/24 and often took desperate measures to stop him.
It will be interesting to see how teams attempt to deal with him next season given his new status as City’s main man. You would imagine that he may receive a similar kind of treatment to what Bukayo Saka gets at Arsenal. As per Stat Muse, the Gunners man drew 69 fouls in the Premier League alone in 2023/24.
