Manchester City will spend this summer and probably break records.
This is not a sign of Pep Guardiola ‘buying’ trophies, nor is it a reflection of an impatient club. It is, instead, an admission this is a club who have had some abysmal transfer windows in recent years and failed to address several glaring issues that have held a young, immensely talented attack back.
Primarily this has been the defence and goalkeeping situations. A new goalkeeper is a guarantee after the catalogue of howlers from Claudio Bravo, but just how seriously they take their defensive investment is yet to be seen. Man City cannot afford another summer of near-misses and prolonged sagas if they want to realistically compete on multiple fronts next season, Guardiola will know that as well as anyone.
What can they do? Well, for a start, they have an awful lot of players to either release or sell on to make space for a new, fresh defence.
Here are THREE reasons the Manchester giants must overhaul their defence…
Age is not just a number
Some players transcend ageing. Manchester City’s defenders have, for the most part, not been in that pack.
Bacary Sagna, 34, Pablo Zabaleta, 32, Gael Clichy, 31, and Aleksandar Kolarov, 31, are all way past their respective peaks, and decline has begun for all four and, despite some decent central defensive performances from Kolarov, all must be replaced this summer.
The 29-year-old Nicolas Otamendi continues to be too error prone, too, which will likely see Man City sign at least one more central defender with Vincent Kompany’s career sadly coming to an end, too
Poor John
John Stones could become one of the best defenders of a generation. He really is that good.
For all the money spent on him by Man City, however, the former Toffee has been thrown into a lose-lose situation. With goalkeeping disasters all too frequent, defensive shape changing and players alongside him short on confidence, Stones is in almost the worst possible position for a developing player.
His improvement even in the course of this season has been marked, but with a proper defence around him, he will continue to go from strength to strength and begin to repay all the money City spent on him.
Pep Needs This
Defenders are not just defenders for Guardiola – they are components in a footballing philosophy who are required to participate in possession as much as the midfielders and must be tactically enough aware to deal with his occasionally abstract requirements.
Whether through inverting the full-backs or using a central defender as a first phase playmaker, Guardiola’s defenders cannot be limited to stopping the opposition. Their responsibilities may vary a little week to week, but players like Jerome Boateng, Gerard Pique and David Alaba epitomise just how much he demands from his back line.
Spend the money in defence and it will more than pay its dividends.
