Monday, September 28, 2020

OPEN DOOR POLICY


Lisbon, 28th September 2020 The channels are closed, the armband has been hung up after one outing. Ruben Dias is a Manchester City player, at the trifling cost of €55 million. With the flying, horizontal Nicolas Otamendi going the other way, what have both sides spent their money on?

Firstly, City get yet another Seixal academy graduate to go with Bernardo Silva and João Cancelo. Soon they will have the whole set and are eligible to receive the free collection of limited edition plastic tokens of past encarnado greats Eusebio, Coluna, Mark Pembridge and Vale e Azevedo. 

Dias rounded off his Benfica career in stylish fashion, wearing the captain’s armband and getting on the scoresheet in the comfortable win over Moreirense at the weekend. And stylish is a word that can be attached to the central defender without fear of contradiction.

City, still smarting from an astonishing 5-2 reverse at home to Leicester, where no fewer than three penalties were conceded by the existing defenders, are in apparently dire need of defensive reconstruction. As well as the obvious problems at centre-back that the arrival of Dias is supposed to alleviate, there are drastic things happening on the left side too, where Benjamin Mendy could conceivably be a totally different person to the razor sharp, lightening quick athlete that stormed the left flank for Monaco in their unforgettably successful 2016-17 season. Champions League semis (having thrillingly disposed of City), league title and a place in the Ligue Un team of the year, no less.

What City fans will want to know is can Dias provide the answers? He is clearly a very astute player, good in control, two-footed, aggressive and neat in his delivery forward. He also likes to advance, often down the inside right channel, to support the attack. At corners and set pieces, he will lend you height and aggression in the box, scoring his fair share of goals. City’s deplorable scoring record from corners might improve a little with Dias in the box.

He can pick a Laporte-esque long ball with either foot and was, in his number 6 shirt for Benfica, a little like a Fernandinho at times in his eagerness to advance from deep. What he shares with City’s legendary midfielder-cum-emergency-centre-back is an understanding of the dark arts. A little nudge here, a snide poke there, an almost imperceptible shove there to knock the balance out of an advancing opponent.

You may have noticed at this point that we are talking about many of the attributes that already exist in bucketloads in the City squad.

The centre back combination has not had an actual pairing at the club since the Kompany-Lescott axis was broken up. Since then that area of the team has been visited by ill fortune and slapstick comedy. Many will remember City’s other capture from the Liga Nos, Eliaquim Mangala, with a wry smile. After one of the coolest debuts seen in a sky blue shirt, when Chelsea were held at bay single-handedly, Mangala netted in his own goal and gave away a penalty the week after v. Hull and proceeded to slowly disintegrate before everyone's eyes. John Stones too has suffered a crisis of confidence which many will say he is still struggling to exit, while Martin Demichelis brought the speed of a train of camels and a unique angle on haircare to the backline.

City’s search has taken them, apparently, via the all-action Kalidou Koulibaly to the even more all-action Jules Kounde but apparently prohibitive cost means they have now alighted on Dias. Which brings us to the crux of the matter. City can attack. Laporte can whack 50-yard passes. Fernandinho can nick and nudge, but can anybody defend here? Caught out by Brendan Rodgers’ simple but effective blanket tactics at the weekend, City’s defence looked ragged, with the full backs dreaming and a lack of pace in the young Garcia noted and acted upon by the flying Harvey Barnes and Jamie Vardy. With the one-paced Rodri smothered, Leicester's plan was ready to spring and, despite an early deficit, they hit five goals in a strikingly weird match.

Asking Ruben Dias to sit tight and whack everything that comes near him is not what the 23-year old is expecting to hear from City's well-honed backroom team. Coming to a Guardiola-led side, he knows what’s what. The question is, will City under Pep ever look anything other than inviting at the back?

Meanwhile, what do Benfica get for their relatively small outlay? 

Well, despite the brickbats, they are buying a whole-hearted defender who will always put his reputation on the line for the team. Otamendi is not the best defender to pass through the Etihad portals, but he is an honest scrapper with a will to win that has seen him richly rewarded in his time at City. Gung-ho, certainly, unable to stay upright, for sure, but the first one into the tackle, the first one up for the penalty box scrummage, the one with his sleeves rolled up "ready" for whatever is coming his way. A fighter for the cause, who City fans will learn to miss properly now that he has gone. 

Which of the two teams gets exactly what they need at this point is not, at this juncture, completely clear, however.



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