Guardiola’s Expensively Assembled Defence Will Struggle To Pass The Litmus Test

Manchester City on Monday announced the £52million signing of French international defender, Benjamin Mendy, from AS Monaco. The left back thus becomes the most expensive defender in football history.

The acquisition of the four cap 23-year-old French international means Pep Guardiola has spent £128million on three full backs; Kyle Walker (£50million), Danilo (£26million), Mendy (£52million) in just 10 days. The above-mentioned names hardly send shivers down the spines of future opponents in the weeks and months to come.

Added to the earlier piece of business conducted in the summer-the Bernardo Silva (£42.5million), Ederson (£34.7million)-deals take Manchester City’s summer spending’s to £205million to date. That’s hardly a mind-blowing figure that could easily be ignored, considering the summer transfer window shuts down in 38days, and Guardiola’s desire to replicate his successes at Barcelona and Bayern Munich should most likely take his total spending this transfer window past the £300million mark.

The 2016/17 football season marked the first time in the illustrious managerial career of Guardiola, that he failed to win a single silverware, a failure he so desperately wants to fix, that he seems to pressurise the clubs management to approve deals for players who are totally over-priced and got huge question marks regarding their abilities to deliver at the Manchester-based club.

The downside in all of this is, Guardiola, preparing a grand sack for himself in the full glare of the watching football community. Last season the defence was an eyesore, as they struggled to play with three-at-the-back, pass the ball out of defence despite the big money signings of Claudio Bravo and John Stones to that effect.

Taking a curious valuation of Manchester City’s defence ahead of the 2017/18 season; we will be blown away by some outrageous sums spent in the last four summer transfer windows with little or no success to show for it.

The present defence consists of the following; Danilo-£26million, Walker-£50million, Eliaquim Mangala-£42million, Nicolas Otamendi-£32million, Stones-£47.5million, Vincent Kompany-£6million, and Mendy-£52million. The valuation of these players means Manchester City’s defence alone is worth a whopping £255million! Costing more than the annual defence budget of Bosnia-£180million, and Congo-£135million.

The aforementioned names exclusive of the rock solid Kompany who is entering his 10th year at the club, do not instil fear in opposition forwards especially on the UEFA Champions League stage, a competition Guardiola so-desperately wants to win, after tasting success last, six years ago.

It will be interesting to see how things play out at the Etihad Stadium, especially in defence this coming season, given the initial verdict of the jury which predicts that Manchester City’s expensively assembled backline will struggle to pass the litmus test. Hopefully, we all are proven wrong!