Man City look to defensive dependancy in upside-down season as attackers struggle for potency

Pep Guardiola has spent a radical amount on defenders and must now hope they prove their worth

Manchester City’s Joao Cancelo (left) celebrates with fellow defender Kyle Walker (right) (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

There is an emphasis on footballing defenders in Pep Guardiola’s philosophy. Goalscoring ones? Not so much, but in a sense defence proved the best form of attack at Bramall Lane. Or one particular defender did, anyway. 

Kyle Walker provided the headline contribution on his return to Sheffield United. It was only City’s ninth goal in six league games and, in a year when the world has been turned upside down, Guardiola’s team are trailing far behind Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham in the scoring stakes.

In another respect, defence compensated for the deficiencies in City’s unusually unprolific attack. Guardiola’s spending at the back attracted attention when he passed through the £400million mark in little over four years. Saturday was a landmark occasion, and not because of Walker’s winner on his 100th league appearance for the club.

If Guardiola has raised the bar with excellence, he has also done so with expenditure. He selected the first £230m back four in English football history. Walker was the £50m full-back, Joao Cancelo the £60m one who, if he was signed to rival the Englishman, may be City’s best left-back – certainly defensively. Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias form the £122m central-defensive duo. City have paid deluxe prices for dependability. Their importance can be measured by their absence; Laporte left a void last season and the game before Dias’ arrival from Benfica was a historic low as, for the only time, a Guardiola side conceded five goals.

They have let in two in four subsequent top-flight matches. In three games – one Champions League, two Premier League – when Laporte and Dias have been paired, City have been breached once, resulting in Rodrigo’s equaliser for Leeds. “We struggled a lot last year not having two centre-backs who gave us that consistency,” Guardiola said. The days of mix-and-match partnerships, of John Stones and Eric Garcia and Fernandinho veering in and out of the strongest team, may be over. This could be City’s more pragmatic evolution. Guardiola’s team are not as slick or as potent further forward, but they have a platform at the back.

These are early days but Dias feels an unexpected coup; recruited in part because City did not get Kalidou Koulibaly or Jules Kounde, just as they were not willing to pay £80m for Harry Maguire last season, but scarcely looking a compromise choice or a panic buy.

Dias has the sort of attributes that are not measured in statistics – or not on Saturday, when he made no tackles, no interceptions and blocked no shots – because he is a presence and he is reassuring. Getting him in part-exchange for Nicolas Otamendi, with his idiosyncratic ability to spread panic, has given City solid foundations. “Defensively we’ve done fantastically well, especially Ruben since he’s come in,” said Walker, who is freed to go forward now Dias is the right-sided centre-back.

Kyle Walker celebrates scoring against Sheffield United (Getty)

Perhaps United were not a barometer of improvement or the ultimate assessment of the £230m rearguard. “They had one clear chance in 90 minutes so that is so good for us,” said Guardiola, and if John Lundstram was wasteful with that opportunity, they had a solitary shot on target, and just three in total. But a team with a lone league goal in open play do not present the stiffest of tests; Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane should on Sunday.  

Liverpool have been the undoing of City defenders before; think of Otamendi, branded ‘Superman’ but scared senseless of Salah. Yet in a division deprived of Virgil van Dijk, there is a vacancy for the unofficial title of the best available centre-back partnership. Laporte and Dias may fill it. Guardiola, the manager who set new standards in attacking football, may have to settle for the security defensive reliability provides.