Grinding out the points and…

…can I have a bit of a whinge? 

 

Of course I can, it’s my Blog.

 

The Mendy conundrum.

Okay, for this one I’m going to talk to an imaginary person who I’m going to call Mr Claypole, who was a character from the mid-70s to early 80s…a ghost dressed as a jester basically.

Why? Just seemed like the right & silly thing to do.

Mr Claypole:

Hey, that Benjamin Mendy is funny, isn’t he?

Me:

Is he?

Mr Claypole:

Yeah, don’t you remember when he was out injured and he did that ‘shark thing’?

Me:

Shark thing?

Mr Claypole:

Yeah, he posted on-line that City were like sharks; gobbling up all teams in their way. And even more funny, some fans started to bring some inflatable sharks to the game and some even dressed UP as sharks! 😊😊😊 LOL / LMAO / #deadfunny

Me:

Oh yeah, I seem to recall that.

Mr Claypole:

Hey he’s dead good on Twitter too.

Me:

Is he?

Mr Claypole:

Yeah and probably on Facebook as well.

Me:

I’ll take your word for it.

Mr Claypole:

Passionate too – remember when he went leggin’ it up the side of the pitch whilst still injured when Sterling scored a late goal at the Etihad?

Me:

I recall a very expensive player who hadn’t played many games for us struggling to limp-run up the side of the pitch while he was supposed to be recovering, yes. In fact, I remember thinking at the time that I hope Pep had a strong word with him afterwards and that if he had done himself some damage he should have been fined. Thankfully, he didn’t aggravate the injury.

Mr Claypole:

He’s fast, isn’t he?

Me:

Yes.

Mr Claypole:

Strong too.

Me:

Aye, he sure is.

Mr Claypole:

And he can ping a good, accurate, long-diagonal ball.

Me:

Yes, he can.

Mr Claypole:

And those crosses into the box – wow!

Me:

Yes, they are mostly good, if not a little too hard at times. But, again, yes; very good.

Me:

But what about him defending?

Mr Claypole:

Erm…I don’t know, I honestly can’t remember him defending.

Me:

Me neither. But on the few occasions he has been called upon to get close to an attacking player he looks very clumsy indeed to me and it often results in a foul being given against him. In fact, I don’t actually recall him ever successfully tackling / dispossessing an opposing player since we signed him. Also, when he attempted such a task early last season, he went about it all wrong and got himself injured for most of the season, I recall. It’s was totally unnecessary & silly.

Mr Claypole:

I suppose.

Me:

And don’t you think that as well as often leaving us exposed down the left flank – also, then, pulling our central defenders across and stretching the shape of our rearguard – Mendy’s inclusion & style often seems to disrupt the flow of how we attack a little; despite how good his runs & crosses can be? Don’t you recall how devastating we were last season without the need for SUCH and out & out attacking left-wing-back?

Mr Claypole:

Yeah, I suppose.

What I’m getting at is this…

On the right-hand-side we’ve got a terrific player who can bomb forward, can make crosses into the box and assist with our attack play but who, more often than not, knows when to switch off his attacking mode and do defensive work. And, in Kyle Walker, we have a player who can defend.

We also had one of those for many years in Pablo Zabaleta; a player who really COULD defend but became proficient also at overlapping with the right-winger and helping with attacks at times. But as a right-back / right-wing-back, he was a defender first & foremost with the ability to press forward and help if needed / asked to, which was secondary.

What have we got in Benjamin Mendy? A supposed left-wing-back who, from what I’ve seen, spends most of his time as a left-winger and even a fair amount of time in midfield. Some would argue that that’s a good thing; it might mean that we are such a good attacking force that he doesn’t need to defend that much. So why buy such an expensive “defender” then? Why not just stick with reliable Fabian Delph (with Zinchenko as cover) and let Leroy Sane or one of many other attacking players who can play on the left do THEIR thing in an attacking role? I mean…good luck to us against the better sides if we’re essentially gonna play with two left-wingers and no left-back!

And there’s a point…what HAS happened to Fabian? A player who not only adapted [from his main position as a central midfielder] and didn’t let us down when-covering for Mendy for so very long but who played flippin’ well at it too! Now there WAS a player who nipped forward when he needed to but was more than mindful of when to track back and how to tackle / defend.

And…what’s happened to Leroy? Okay he had a few young-naive 'off moments' & games last season and, yes, perhaps his head isn’t quite right after not being selected for Germany for the World Cup. But I don’t think I’m the only one who believes that the hugely talented player has been shifted to one side to make room for the very attacking wing-back, Mendy…and I’m not sure it’s proving to be such a good thing as yet.

Yes, we’ve won 3 from 4 but there was talk after the Arsenal win that we managed to do that whilst in 2^nd gear because the home side looked so ‘off the pace’ on the day. Looking back, did we manage to do it in 2^nd gear or was that just our top gear that day?

Huddersfield was a masterclass performance from City and not only will I give huge praise to Pep for his very-much-changed tactics but Benjamin Mendy was brilliant that afternoon too!

Then, despite the 71%, overall possession, we didn’t look quite right against Wolves and they had chance after chance when exposing our defence so many times, as they did throughout the game.

And then yesterday, where Mendy was caught in our own half as Newcastle’s attack took shape; his pace could only keep him on the heels of the eventual goal scorer as he legged it back from somewhere near the half-way line. I was never a massive Aleks Kolarov fan and Mendy is definitely a big upgrade. But trust me when I say that if that had been Kolarov who had got caught SO out of position yesterday the City fan forum pages on the WEB would have gone into meltdown with fans baying for his head! But, then again, he wasn’t such a massive social media darling as our Benji appears to be in a lot of people’s eyes…

Whinging git?

I know that this sounds like an over-blown, early season moan and, perhaps, a very much uncalled-for rant after achieving 10 points from 12. It might even look like I’ve joined that bunch of City fans whose expectations have risen far higher than they perhaps should do.

Well, no…it isn’t and I haven’t.

But I just see, for the moment at least, the ‘Mendy inclusion’ causing our general play to look not quite a fluid as it did last season (Huddersfield game aside) and, yes, I am taking in consideration also that it’s still early in the season; following a long domestic campaign last season and a long World Cup, for some of our players, following that.

However, I can just see this being debated in the coming weeks when we resume domestic football after the international break and, already in fact, I have both heard chatter last night and read stuff this morning from fans who are already starting to throw their own question marks about our left-sided flank for the same reasons.

As much as I want it to work out one way or another, I don’t see this one going away any time soon but I do trust that Pep has seen it and is ‘on it’…