CityInWashingtonState
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 5 Aug 2017
- Messages
- 2,624
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- Manchester City is my team - until I fucking die.
Anyone is bound to make a bad pass. Center backs making such bad passes... if such passes are intercepted short... this must occur very infrequently, as such passes will often lead to goal scoring opportunities.Vs Huddersfield, late in the game, Otamendi passed a ball from inside our box, directly to an oppo player outside our box, approaching, with team mates around him.
It was an awful, potentially disasterous mistake. They didn't score though & I'm not even sure they got a shot off. Kompany & Stones have done similar, as has Walker & KDB on numerous occasions at the halfway line or deeper & most of the time, unless it's a direct backpass, it doesn't result in a goal.
It lloks bad, but it rarely is. Same with Mangala.
BUT when he came on to win the ball in the air etc, the first thing he did, was run underneath it & lose the challenge leaving a gap behind.
That imo, is the problem with Mangala: he often doesn't do, what it says on the tin. If he did, I don't personally care if he gives away 1 goal per season with a bad pass.
He isn't defending to the required level & needs a big improvement.
As I've stated above - Mangala "excels" at the horrible pass - he turns the ball over to the opposition with a bonehead pass far more than any of our other center backs, and often such passes are intercepted deep within our own half.
Stones has largely eradicated this from his game - which has turned him into one of the P/L's best center backs.
But as you've pointed out, Mangala has other weaknesses. Judgement/positioning are in question too - but horrible passing is I think his greatest defect.
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