Manchester City Appoint Kolo Toure As New Assistant Coach

Manchester City are gearing up to strengthen themselves for the 2025/26 season after being unable to win a major trophy in the 2024-25 campaign. They are not only intent on improving their first-team squad, but also Pep Guardiola's support staff. The Premier League giants have confirmed the appointment of Kolo Toure as the Man City assistant coach on a permanent basis, after he had started serving in that role during their 2025 FIFA Club World Cup campaign.

Manchester City Confirm Kolo Toure As New Assistant Coach

Manchester City have continued the reshuffling of their coaching staff in the summer of 2025 by roping in Kolo Toure as an assistant coach to work under Pep Guardiola heading into the 2025/26 season. The former Ivory Coast international defender had worked as a coach in Man City's under-18s group before being promoted to help the first-team players during the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 campaign.

Pep Guardiola was won over by Toure's coaching style and how he helped players as an assistant coach and the club has decided to keep the 44-year-old in the Spanish manager's support staff for the foreseeable future.

Kolo Toure earned a lot of praise for his innovative coaching methods and his charismatic personality, which helped him become a popular figure among the Manchester City players. The club's sporting director, Hugo Viana, hailed the impact made by the ex-Ivory Coast defender and explained why he was appointed as Man City assistant coach on a permanent basis, stating: “We’re delighted to permanently add Kolo to our first team coaching staff. Not only does he bring his immensely precious experience at football’s elite level, but he also has a deep connection with Manchester City and a deep knowledge of the Club. As we already saw throughout his time with Pep Guardiola, Pep Lijnders, and James French this summer, his massive personality of optimism and positivity is hugely infectious, and we’re already looking forward to his work moving forward.”

How Has Kolo Toure Coaching Career Gone So far?

Kolo Toure has enjoyed a successful playing career, being the second-most capped player for Ivory Coast with 120 international caps in his belt. The Ivorian centre-back was brought to the Premier League by Arsene Wenger to Arsenal in 2002, as he made over 250 appearances for them and was also part of their ‘Invincibles’ Premier League-winning squad in 2004. Tooure joined Manchester City in 2009, and won the 2011/12 Premier League title with them.

He also had a short stint at Liverpool from 2013-2016, making over 50 appearances for the Reds. Toure joined Celtic for the last dance of his playing career in 2016, playing one season for them before retiring in 2017. Since then, Toure has been working in a coaching role and has garnered quite a bit of experience as well. He started his coaching career as a member of the Ivory Coast under-23 side's coaching staff in 2017, helping their players in the 2017 African Nations Championship.

Kolo Toure then joined Celtic's coaching staff in September 2017, working under Brendan Rodgers in the ‘technical assistant coach’ role. The Ivorian also followed Brendan Rodgers to Leicester City in 2019, working as an assistant coach for the Foxes until 2022. Toure finally kick-started his career as a head coach in November 2022 when he was appointed as the Wigan Athletic manager. However, that was relatively short-lived as Wigan Athletic lost six of the nine matches under him and he was sacked in late January 2023.

Toure joined Manchester City as an assistant manager of the Man City under-18 team in July 2024. He worked under Oliver Reid, with the two helping Manchester City under-18s win the North Division of the U18 Premier League championship in 2024/25, where they won 21 of their 24 matches and scored 90 goals.

The impressive work shown by Kolo Toure in terms of helping young players maximize their potential impressed Pep Guardiola, who has now decided to permanently take him as Man City assistant coach. Guardiola will work with a new-look coaching staff in the 2025/26 season, having also roped in former Liverpool coaches Pep Ljinders and James French to replace three members of his backroom staff - Juanma Lilo, Carlos Vicens and Inigo Dominguez - who all left at the end of the 2024/25 Premier League season.