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 defence 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.

“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 …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com