In my last article, I talked about the formation and tactical changes that Pellegrini could make in order to better suit the players. However, no matter how insightful my analysis may be, Pellegrini and the City coaching staff probably aren’t reading my articles. That being said, who can City bring in to better suit the current attacking style?
So what attacking style am I referring to? To put it politely, City are heavy crossers of the ball. They average more crosses per game than any other top four team by some margin: City: 18, Arsenal: 14.95, Tottenham: 13.1, and Leicester: 16.35. The only season in recent memory that we had a comparable amount of crosses was 13/14 when City had Negredo, a strong aerial presence that thrived on headers. The current style of play doesn’t necessarily lend itself to Sergio Aguero who can’t be blamed for not winning aerial duels with centre backs that are much taller than him. Even at 6’0, Wilfried Bony isn’t a major aerial presence. City are missing the height and penalty box aggressiveness of players like Edin Dzeko and Negredo, but the past is the past and they won’t be coming back.
So what are the options in January? Jackson Martinez hasn’t seem to fit into the Atletico system, and Diego Simeone is willing to get rid of him. Martinez may not be thriving in the Madrid side, which features heavy pressing and fast counter attacking with relatively medium to small amounts of possession, but City average nearly 58% possession. To put that in perspective, Bayern Munich averages around 71% possession, so the Blues hold a relatively high possession percentage in a more competitive league.
Their away performances tell a similar story, City held 56% possession at Arsenal, 53% at Watford, and 58% at the King Power. So what that can be translated to is that City’s play style suits Martinez better than the one he’s currently in. Our play style relies on individual skill, short passing plays, or having a target man to win balls in the opposition’s box in order to draw out and go past defenders. Whilst City have most of those ingredients in spades, there is no target man on the team sheet. Sagna, Kolarov, De Bruyne, and Sterling are all capable crossers of the ball, but there usually isn’t anyone with the physical attributes to match those wonderful balls. Martinez’ stats are comparable to Mario Mandzukic, who is established as an able header of the ball. This year alone, which has been considered sub-par for the Colombian, he’s averaging winning 3.6 offensive aerial duels per game, vs Mandzukic who is slightly higher in Serie A with an average win of 4 offensive aerial duels per game.
Quality strikers at a decent price are a hard thing to come by, and I don’t think a mediocre half-season means that Martinez is no longer a quality player. Atleti bought him from Porto for around €35 Million euros. Considering his dip in form and the fact that the Spanish club do not want him anymore, the lowest they’ll probably settle for is around £25 million. It’s certainly a pricey and somewhat risky endeavor, but Martinez marked three consecutive seasons where he scored just about 30 goals at Porto, 31, 29, 32. Out of the available forwards on the market, he seems the most fitting, and will be highly motivated to return to his high-scoring standards.
