Manchester City’s defense costing them the league

A lack of investment in the back-line is haunting Manchester City.

If you were to ask someone to give you a reason as to why Manchester City may not win the league this season, one of the first answers given would be because of their defense. Through eight games of the season, it certainly seems that way.

City are coming off a shock result against Wolves where they struggled to score and were exposed quite badly on two counter-attacks late in the game. Nicolas Otamendi in particular, continues to struggle and is not someone who is capable of captaining a defense.

But this weak spot was something people spotted prior to the start of the season.

Vincent Kompany, former club captain, left to go back home to Belgium to play with Anderlecht. Despite being kept out of games through injury, he was remained the anchor when he did play and played an important role in City winning the title last season.

With Kompany gone, Manchester City failed to find a suitable replacement. Instead they chose to enter the season with Aymeric Laporte, Nicolas Otamendi, and John Stones as their only available center-backs. On their day, all three are good defenders with Laporte being the standout.

The problem is aside from Laporte, the other two’s good days are few and far between.

When Aymeric Laporte suffered a knee injury, Pep Guardiola was left scrambling as the timetable for his return was set at six months.

The club had an opportunity to sign Harry Maguire in the offseason before ultimately signing for Manchester United.

According to the BBC, when asked about Maguire, Guardiola said, “He’s an excellent, top-class player. We were interested but could not afford it.”

Manchester City has spent a lot of money over the last few years so saying they could not afford to sign Harry Maguire is not a good excuse. This season they spent on Joao Cancelo and Rodrigo. Both are still trying to adjust to the league.

Fernandinho has been deployed as the emergency center-back with Laporte and John Stones out. This isn’t the first time Guardiola’s experimented like this as he deployed Javier Mascherano as a center-back when he was at Barcelona. On that occasion, it proved a success.

However, at Barcelona, he had Sergio Busquets playing that crucial role in midfield linking with the defense and the attack which allowed him to use Mascherano that way.

Fernandinho covered that role at City and is competent as a central defender but it is going to take time for Rodrigo to do what his Brazilian counterpart used to do and time is something that is not on their side.

Looking at the table, Manchester City have a plus-18 goal differential. But that can be deceiving considering the wallop they gave to Watford, Brighton, and West Ham. In their other five league games they’ve given up at least one goal. Take those games away, and their goal differential is only plus-six.

Signing defenders has not been something City or Guardiola have been particularly good at. Take a look at the lack of signings at Barcelona after signing Dmytro Chigrinsky. City have signed the likes of Eliaquim Mangala, among others, to little success.

With Laporte out long-term and Stones regressing, City need to sign a defender in the winter transfer window. Liverpool already have a commanding eight-point lead. At this point, Guardiola’s side cannot afford any more slip-ups.