Topic : Manchester City's Midfield Needs an Overhaul to Fit Guardiola's Blueprint
Headline : Manchester City's Midfield Needs an Overhaul to Fit Guardiola's Blueprint
Manchester City's Midfield Needs an Overhaul to Fit Guardiola's Blueprint
When Pep Guardiola gets his Manchester City players together and assesses them more closely, he’s going to find holes in the squad that urgently need fixing.
They need a striker to replace Wilfried Bony, who will surely be sold after a nightmare season that saw him fail to score after the new year. A tall, physical striker like the former Swansea City man is needed—but one with the quality and confidence to excel at a top club chasing silverware. The Ivorian is well short of the necessary tools.
The defense is ageing and creaking. Vincent Kompany has become a liability due to his fragile calves, while Nicolas Otamendi and Eliaquim Mangala are yet to convince. Their four full-backs are all 30-plus, and Guardiola will want younger options.
But it’s perhaps in midfield where the most significant overhaul is needed. Guardiola’s Barcelona and Bayern Munich sides were both built around a group of midfielders who possessed technical quality, whose ability to keep the ball and pass quickly and efficiently was honed to perfection.
“I love the midfield players,” he once said, per James Robson of the Manchester Evening News. “I would like to have a thousand midfield players in my squad, in my team because I believe the midfield players are intelligent understand the game.
ODD ANDERSEN/Getty Images“You can win the games with good defenders and good strikers, but to play good, you need midfield players.”
Right now, his options are somewhat limited. Yaya Toure, 32, may well leave, with his two-minute cameo on the final day of the season at Swansea likely to have been an opportunity to say goodbye to the away fans before a summer exit.
Fernando lacks the movement and passing quality Guardiola craves, although he does provide useful defensive capability, and Fabian Delph has sometimes struggled since his move from Aston Villa in the summer.
Fernandinho is perhaps the only current midfield player who looks capable of operating in a Guardiola midfield—but he also has the tools to move back to defence, something the Spaniard has done with other midfielders in the past. It would hardly be a surprise to see the Brazilian operate further back under his stewardship.
All of which leaves him in need of new faces, the kind who can revolutionise City's style. He will want masters at passing, those who can receive the ball in any position and spot a pass, retaining possession at all costs.
It's those midfielders that have been key to his past successes at Barcelona and Bayern Munich where he won a total of 21 major trophies and became the most coveted manager in the world.
First through the door is likely to be Ilkay Gundogan. According to Simon Jones of MailOnline, his initial fee is set to be less than £20 million—a bargain for a player of his quality. His dislocated kneecap put the move in some doubt, but it would seem City are still keen to get the deal done.
He will bring an ability to control the game. He rarely loses the ball (he had a passing accuracy of just under 90 per cent last season, according to WhoScored.com) and can dribble superbly.
With City sometimes lacking creativity last season, he should help solve the issue. He can pick out runners and create opportunities with his superb passing, as well as create space by beating players. The price makes it something of a no-brainer, even if he is currently out injured.
Boris Streubel/Getty ImagesToni Kroos is another who fits the Guardiola blueprint, with his outstanding range of passing and positional flexibility making him ideal for the kind of football the Spaniard will want City to play.
Thiago Alcantara appears settled at Bayern, but he, too, is a player Guardiola admires having made him one of his first signings when he took over the German side in 2013, taking the midfielder from his former club Barcelona.
Every midfield needs some steel, though, and Juventus' Paul Pogba is the player man City should target most aggressively. The France international has supreme technical quality and is capable of a moment of individual brilliance that can carve open a defense—but he also possesses running power, the ability to tackle and a dynamism few others can match.
It could be an expensive summer—but if Guardiola can land the right targets and turn City's midfield into one that mirrors those he has constructed in the past, success is likely to follow.
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