Arsenal and Manchester City have developed quite a portfolio of recent transfer interaction. Emmanuel Adebayor moved from north London to Manchester in the most dramatic of fashions, Samir Nasri had the greatest on-field impact, but it is the full-backs who have stayed on long beyond Adebayor, Nasri and Kolo Toure. Bacary Sagna and Gael Clichy remain at Manchester City despite clearly having enjoyed their best years in the earlier part of this decade.
Full-backs are integral to the way that Pep Guardiola sets his teams up to play and somehow City have left themselves criminally short. Relying on veterans Sagna, Clichy, Kolarov and Zabaleta shows a brutal failure in the transfer market once again for City. Kolarov has at least become a centre-back under Guardiola and occasionally performed well, Zabaleta is a club icon and leader in the dressing room, Sagna and Clichy have too often underperformed and should have been upgraded on last summer.
The way City have invested in their defence has been naive. Additions of Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolas Otamendi have not worked out after the massive fees and John Stones was signed and thrown into a defence that made it very hard for him to adapt. The failure to address their glaring long-running full-back weakness has bordered on amateur. Sagna and Clichy’s best days in the Premier League are long gone and, in fact, both signings could have been questioned even at the time they were made.
Sagna was a short-term solution to a very real problem, while Clichy always seemed like a signing made to fill a gap as cheaply as was reasonably possible. Both have had good periods at the club, but neither are anywhere near the level that City need if they are to become a member of the European elite. After all, that’s why they hired Pep.
City’s status in the sport is not defined by full-backs. It is, however, a reflection of a club who have too often been slapdash in the transfer windows. With the issue so obvious to any spectator now, City will have their work cut out to find full-backs at a near acceptable price. At least three are needed in this summer window alone, which is testament to just how desperate the situation has become.
In 2016/17, Sagna and Clichy have combined for 30 starts for a Premier League club with title ambitions. That speaks for itself. As an occasional player they could be of use, but City have had to lean on two players who are into years of decline and clearly not suited to their long dreamt about manager.
City’s campaign could have been so very different had they made the necessary full-back additions at some point in the last year or two. Instead, they are going to have to deal with their reliance on former Arsenal players once it has reached a point of emergency.
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