In recent seasons, the defence has always been one of City’s Achilles heels, and that was shown again in Saturday’s 2-0 loss against Middlesbrough. Vincent Kompany is arguably one of the world’s best, but we just haven’t been able to find a suitable and stabl partner for the Belgian recently. Last summer, The Blues were chasing both Mehdi Benatia of Serie A side Roma, and Eliaquim Mangala of Portugese side FC Porto. Mangala was our preferred option, and he joined in August 2014 for a sum of more than £30 million; Benatia opted for Germany as champions Bayern Munich tabled a late bid. Txiki Begiristan and his team saw the young Frenchman as the man to solve the defensive problems, but again the issues still continued to arise. Mangala has struggled to settle on the blue side of Manchester, and even after an impressive debut against title-rivals Chelsea, he has made a number of high-profile mistakes, some of which have proved costly and have emphasised his inexperience compared to the vastly experienced Vincent Kompany. This has led to him sharing the first-team place with the impressive veteran Martin Demichelis, but the Argentine’s older age questions his ability to perform at this level for much longer.
Things are looking up as you go down the ranks however. Rising EDS star George Evans recently showed Pellegrini just what he is all about in a Middle Eastern friendly against Hamburg with a solid performance, and Jason Denayer – on loan at Celtic – has very much impressed among the Glasgow faithful, scoring a handful of goals to go with his stern defensive displays at Celtic Park.
The right-back area is not a worry. Pablo Zabaleta has cemented himself as first-choice in that position, shuffling out injury-stricken Micah Richards as the latter was loaned out to Fiorentina in the summer. There is also Bacary Sagna who provides some opportunity for rotation. The left-back area is a questionable one, though. Aleksander Kolarov and Gael Clichy have shared the responsibility recently, but none of them look entirely comfortable there.
City are desperately calling out for a quality centre-back to partner Vincent Kompany at the heart of the defence. Eliaquim Mangala could well silence his critics and adjust to the way City play, or one of the younger players may rise up the ranks to cement their place in the first-team. Dedryck Boyata, George Evans and certainly Jason Denayer seem destined to do that. It will be very interesting to see just what happens with City’s defensive area, but there shouldn’t be any worry about the future of it.
The Middlesbrough game
City went with the unfamiliar all-Belgian central partnership of Vincent Kompany and Dedryck Boyata, with Zabaleta and Kolarov filling the full-back areas respectively as the FA Cup returned to action on Saturday. Middlesbrough are enjoying a fruitful campaign in which they occupy second place in the Championship, just one point behind leaders Bournemouth.
The first-half did not really trouble the Blues’ back-line as we put Boro under some pressure; with Kolarov, Milner and Aguero looking a particular threat, but goalkeeper Mejias was always there to snuff out the danger. A penalty could well have been given midway through the first-half when Kolarov’s shot clearly hit the hand of Daniel Ayala, but referee Phil Dowd saw nothing going.
The only real threat to our defensive area was a disallowed header from Boro midfielder Lee Tomlin, which was correctly ruled out for offside. The first period drew to a close, with City ruing plenty of missed opportunities which, if taken, could have put them comfortably in front. There was no goal for both sides, however, and most notably, nothing to really trouble the Blues’ defence.
Perhaps there was some form of complacency as the second-half began, with a hopeful ball over the top from Boro resulting in a huge defensive mix-up between Fernando and Wily Caballero allowing Albert Adomah to squeeze the ball beyond the goalkeeper, letting Patrick Bamford race forward and divert Fernando’s attempted clearance into the net to send over 5,000 Boro fans into raptures behind the goal. It was sloppy from City, as they failed to deal with a simple ball that initially posed little danger. You could say that they got bullied off the ball by Boro, who just wanted it more than the Blues.
After getting the breakthrough, Middlesbrough threatened to extend their lead by testing City’s back-line even further. Lee Tomlin, in particular, was causing our defence all sorts of problems as he twice went one-on-one with Willy Caballero, with the goalkeeper and the woodwork keeping the midfielder out on each occasion. The damaging thing as far as City are concerned is the simple manner in which Tomlin managed to evade a number of City defenders before trying his luck. They really should have marked him tighter and not allowed him any time to maneuver.
City really were looking defensively weak, with a stinging Jelle Vossen volley testing Caballero and a weak Albert Adomah effort causing them even more problems to comprehend with. Vincent Kompany’s recent return to action is certainly showing, as he looked rusty in preventing Middlesborough attacks, which could easily have resulted in an even more embarrassing scoreline. Boyata did not have a bad game, but he was definitely made to work by Boro’s high-spirited outfit.
Our back-line was again breached in stoppage-time, and it was Patrick Bamford once more who muscled us off the ball to poke it through to Kike, who gratefully slotted the ball home to seal the win for the Championship side.
We need to find a suitable partner for Kompany, and fast. That player may well be in the squad already, or we may have to invest again, but it is certainly an area we need to cover well if we are to keep pace with Chelsea as the season begins to get interesting…
