After an uncertain defence nearly derailed City’s title challenge last season, Manuel Pellegrini opted to spend 32 million pounds on French international Eliaquim Mangala. No one was really sure what to expect, gamers knew he was a physical beast, and people who had seen him in the odd champions league game on sky sports knew he was strong, that was about it from the majority of English football fans. Many questioned whether he would be able to adapt to a ‘big league’ after playing at one of the weaker leagues in major European football. After his debut against Chelsea, he appeared to be the answer almost immediately, he looked adept in a high line, he brought the ball out of the back as well as his captain and centre back partner did, and he constantly outmuscled the league’s most in form striker Diego Costa. His performance was called ‘impressive’ by Gary Neville, and much of the analysis after the game focused on his terrific performance.
However, the next game produced a slight shock for City fans, as we travelled to the KC Stadium to face Steve Bruce’s vastly improving Hull, many were looking forward to watching him play after such a terrific debut. But it did not go as planned, he gave away a penalty and scored an own goal to throw away city’s quick-fire lead and the post-game analysis focused on his weaknesses. That not only says a lot about our fickle media, but it did also show that Mangala was not going to be an instant solution to a continuous problem for City. This may seem an overreaction, but our inconsistent defence has been problematic not just at home, but in Europe. Mangala’s struggles continued and he appeared to perform poorly against CSKA Moscow and West Ham. Some fans even went as far as saying he should be dropped for Demichelis or Nastasic. However, i am strongly of the belief that this dip in form is not his fault, and if we combat the problem quickly, it will be a small blip, rather than a major problem. He is struggling with a few things that could easily be changed by the manager and other players around him.
Firstly, he simply isn’t being covered at all well by whoever is playing left back. Gael Clichy has been a constant let down for him in recent weeks. Take the Morgan Amalfitano goal against West Ham United. Mangala no doubt made a poor decision trying to chase Valencia, as the commentator on Match of the Day said ‘he was either going to be outpaced, or was going to bring Enner Valencia down’. But this comment ignores the fact that Gael Clichy should have just intercepted the ball, instead he stood still and offered no protection to a young defender on a pretty poor run of form, it was poor from the left back. This lack of protection continued throughout the first half. Take a quick look at the image below:
Gael Clichy first off, is nowhere to be seen, meaning Mangala has to be dragged across into a left back position, David Silva and Yaya Toure are casually strolling back, despite it being the job of Silva to track the overlap. In addition to this, Fernando was having to press high up the pitch which explains why he is also behind West Ham’s attacking transition. Mangala needed protection, he was against a fast dynamic strike force in Sakho and Valencia, but Clichy went missing and his midfield offered him no help, he was in trouble from the off. This happened time and time again, notably late in the second half just before the Sakho goal, Valencia span off of Fernando and moved into the channel, but Clichy was in no-mans land and Mangala had to completely shuffle across, therefore leaving Kompany to deal with Sakho and Noble in the middle. This isn’t an attack on Clichy, because Kolarov isn’t much better, he was caught leaving Mangala in trouble in Moscow last week, again leaving the Frenchman to deal with a fast attacking duo of Ahmed Musa and Seydou Doumbia. Overall, Mangala is young, and needs some protection early on, we of course need to be careful as to not shield him from the reality of Premier League football, but having some help from the left back really isn’t much to ask for.
Another issue is the formation. 4-4-2 no doubt worked well for us last year, but the issue is that we often get caught between the lines, especially against teams who employ a two in midfield. Noble and Song ran the game on Saturday until Pellegrini switched to 4-2-3-1. The pattern of the first half was this: Noble and Song would get the ball in space, and both would pick passes, Toure wasn’t effectively pressing, so Fernando had to move up to combat this midfield set up from Allardyce, leaving Downing or Valencia in acres of space between the lines. This meant city’s back four not only had two in form players running at them for long spells, but they also had overlapping runs from Jenkinson, Cresswell, Amalfitano and Sakho to deal with for long spells in the first half. This is shown in the image below:
This was the buildup to the excellent West Ham opener (or soft opener, depending on how you want to look at it). As you see to the left of the screen, Song and Noble are parallel, in a double pivot style setup, Toure and Fernando have pushed up to combat them, but this leaves Sakho in the hole, Mangala had just pushed up to combat this, but when Noble picks out Valencia, he is left backtracking. That space between the lines is completely unacceptable, especially against a midfield diamond. It not only gives West Ham time, but it also leaves the defence totally exposed, even someone with an extreme amount of pace would struggle to make up ground from midfield to help out the back four in this situation. Mangala no doubt makes a poor decision in trying to go for Valencia, but what other option does he have? He has been left totally exposed by a midfield that was simply all over the place when we were defending, it didn’t know whether to press Song and Noble or drop deep and try to nullify Downing and Valencia. A midfield 5 in this game would have meant that Fernando could stay in the hole, thereby minimizing the options West Ham had, whilst maintaining a pressure on Noble and Song who were picking passes for fun. This isn’t just a problem for Mangala, it’s a problem for the whole back four, especially when Yaya Toure is in the midfield 2 as he doesn’t have the highest defensive work rate we’ve seen at the Etihad. Simply put, the formation isn’t helping Mangala, he is being asked to do too much too soon, the choice of a midfield 2 leaves us exposed in the hole and to midfield runners, it was a nightmare performance at Upton Park that somewhat mirrored the issues in Moscow. Kompany can deal with it more as he is the best central defender the world has seen in recent years, but you can’t expect the same from young Mangala, especially as he is in a transition phase.
Perhaps the more obvious point, is that he is simply adapting to an extremely demanding style of defending that Manuel Pellegrini employs. Forget formations, forget personnel, we play a very high line, higher than the majority of teams in Europe, we seek to control the game high up the pitch and use offside traps to maintain an extreme pressure on our opponents. This is demanding, it took the experienced Martin Demichelis a good amount of time to adapt, and he’d played in this exact system before under Pellegrini at Malaga. Mangala has certainly struggled with this offside trap, and it continued on Saturday where Kompany was constantly having to cover him, he committed six fouls in the process. This was more than any other player in the game. But this cannot be pinned on Mangala, he is just taking time to adapt, there is no doubt it will happen for him soon, he just needs a bit of time and perseverance. Pellegrini is a demanding coach, more demanding than any Mangala has played under, and rightfully so. If we want to compete on four fronts, he has to be demanding, he can’t be relaxed and he will need his players to stick with his methods, especially those offside traps. There is often a debate as to whether players truly need a settling in period, that debate is for another time, but when you play for a club in 4 competitions, then you do need to adapt, it’s that simple. If we keep drilling him on the offside trap, we give him a bit more cover from the full back, and we ditch the 4-4-2 away from home, then we will see a serious improvement in Eliaquim Mangala, we need to nurture him, we need to give him cover and let him learn in his own time.
