Pep Guardiola has a five-player wishlist to improve his Manchester City side as the January transfer window approaches.

The Catalan coach is undergoing an at City having won just once in 13 games. The champions have slipped to seventh in the table, 14 points behind league-leaders .

Guardiola would be . The Citizens have seen a number of defensive injuries while Rodri has been unavailable for most of the season.

"If we can we have to add players, definitely," he told Amazon Prime Video before being pressed on which positions needed strengthening. "We struggle especially at the back, in the middle," he added.

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"I don't know if it's going to happen. I think we have to but I don't know if it's going to happen. The transfer window in winter is not easy."

Martín Zubimendi, Bruno Guimaraes, Jamal Musiala, Florian Wirtz, Marc Guehi are all under consideration, according to . Zubimendi and Guimaraes would offer City greater help in the centre of midfield to cover for Rodri's absence.

Guardiola's side have been linked to both players previously but the latter is likely to prove prohibitively expensive such is his importance to , while Zubimendi chose to reject a move to Liverpool in the summer in favour of staying at Real Sociedad.

Guehi meanwhile saw bids in the region of £70million from Newcastle not accepted by in the summer. The Eagles were holding out for a premium price for the central defender after an impressive summer with England at Euro 2024.

Bundesliga stars Musiala and Wirtz offer much more attacking options, with both German internationals still just 21. A move in January will add even more difficulty.

Neither will prove cheap to prise from their clubs with and Bayer Leverkusen respectively, unlikely to be keen to sell star players.

Regardless, Guardiola believes injuries have had the most significant impact on the team's downturn in for. "Sometimes you have injuries," Guardiola said. "For how many years we were incredibly consistent but now, yes, we're a little bit down and the main reason is having so many important players injured.

"But I saw the team spirit, how we trained this week, how focused they are, how they try to practise. We saw that against but unfortunately we couldn't get the result we wanted."

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