Garcia

[TonyM]

In all seriousness, he hasn't been played in his actual position even once for City. Busquets or Javi Martinez would look crap aswell if they were used like Garcia was last season. They are specialist players, you can't just lob them in central midfield and expect them to be box to box midfielders or Nige style destroyers, that's not their game

What's their game?

 

[NoahCity]

I think his positional awareness is a lot better than people give him credit for.

Just because he doesn't tackle like Nigel de Jong doesn't make him a bad player. Xabi Alonso said a while ago that he doesn't understand the British obsession with tackling.

In Spain tackling should be seen as a last resort and the fact you have to make a tackle can be indication of doing something wrong rather than something right with regards to reading the game. One of the best defenders of all time Paolo Maldini only made 1 tackle every couple of games.

Because there's a bias between what is obvious visually (e.g. a tackle) and what is harder to see (slight movements and blocking passing channels, for example), players such as Garcia can be castigated.

The problem is when he does get things wrong tactically occasionally (like away at Wigan in one of his first starts for us) then that will be ingrained in people's minds and the good stuff gets ignored.

I believe he will be very useful for us next season. Maybe I'm wrong, we shall see.

I'd be fine with that but players get past him so much that clearly he doesn't read the game well enough.

 

[BigOscar]

In all seriousness, he hasn't been played in his actual position even once for City. Busquets or Javi Martinez would look crap aswell if they were used like Garcia was last season. They are specialist players, you can't just lob them in central midfield and expect them to be box to box midfielders or Nige style destroyers, that's not their game

What's their game?

They're sweeping midfielders, they play between the midfield and defence, simply feeding the creative midfielders when they get the ball and staying back at all times to offer a ball backwards to recycle possesion and then cover the defence by positioning themselves and reading the game. It's a very spanish role, I can't really think of any other nation that produces that sort of player. Clearly the Barca execs saw him as our Busquets, but Mancini had no intention of playing that way so didn't know what to do with him imo

 

[citysince88]

I agree, Garcia's positional awareness is fabulous. He is always well placed to watch numerous opposition players simply breeze past him.

In all fairness it's not his fault he's not good enough, I would love to know who at City thought he and Sinclair were good enough for us.

 

[NoahCity]

In all seriousness, he hasn't been played in his actual position even once for City. Busquets or Javi Martinez would look crap aswell if they were used like Garcia was last season. They are specialist players, you can't just lob them in central midfield and expect them to be box to box midfielders or Nige style destroyers, that's not their game

What's their game?

They're sweeping midfielders, they play between the midfield and defence, simply feeding the creative midfielders when they get the ball and staying back at all times to offer a ball backwards to recycle possesion and then cover the defence by positioning themselves and reading the game. It's a very spanish role, I can't really think of any other nation that produces that sort of player. Clearly the Barca execs saw him as our Busquets, but Mancini had no intention of playing that way so didn't know what to do with him imo

Sorriano and Txiki weren't here when we got Garcia, he wasn't their buy.

 

[BigOscar]

What's their game?

They're sweeping midfielders, they play between the midfield and defence, simply feeding the creative midfielders when they get the ball and staying back at all times to offer a ball backwards to recycle possesion and then cover the defence by positioning themselves and reading the game. It's a very spanish role, I can't really think of any other nation that produces that sort of player. Clearly the Barca execs saw him as our Busquets, but Mancini had no intention of playing that way so didn't know what to do with him imo

Sorriano and Txiki weren't here when we got Garcia, he wasn't their buy.

Forgot about that, they took over a few weeks later didn't they? Either way, clearly Mancini hadn't got a clue what to do with him, he didn't fit his system at all (if you think Mancini really had much of a midfield system last year)

 

[LHarper]

I think his positional awareness is a lot better than people give him credit for.

Just because he doesn't tackle like Nigel de Jong doesn't make him a bad player. Xabi Alonso said a while ago that he doesn't understand the British obsession with tackling.

In Spain tackling should be seen as a last resort and the fact you have to make a tackle can be indication of doing something wrong rather than something right with regards to reading the game. One of the best defenders of all time Paolo Maldini only made 1 tackle every couple of games.

Because there's a bias between what is obvious visually (e.g. a tackle) and what is harder to see (slight movements and blocking passing channels, for example), players such as Garcia can be castigated.

The problem is when he does get things wrong tactically occasionally (like away at Wigan in one of his first starts for us) then that will be ingrained in people's minds and the good stuff gets ignored.

I believe he will be very useful for us next season. Maybe I'm wrong, we shall see.

I'd be fine with that but players get past him so much that clearly he doesn't read the game well enough.

He did get beaten more than he should have in some games last season but not as much as people think. He was a bit naïve at times but I think that will be something he will work on.

 

[svennis pennis]

Not content with this summers brilliant transfer business. Bluemoon turns out one of our own.

Zabaleta would of been in the 'get rid' category after his first season here by quite a majority.

1 season in a team that looked a shadow of the one from the previous year. Give the guy a break.

 

[Dj1979]

Not content with this summers brilliant transfer business. Bluemoon turns out one of our own.

Zabaleta would of been in the 'get rid' category after his first season here by quite a majority.

1 season in a team that looked a shadow of the one from the previous year. Give the guy a break.

I'm hearing that about zabaleta first season he seemed to make the decision that he was going for a sliding tackle about 5 minutes before the ball came near him and regardless if i was a winnable tackle or not yo could always tell he was going to ground and never getting close to the ball. The improvement in Zabaleta a city is unreal not sure what he was like before he got here as i had never really heard of him so don't know if it's a general improvement or if that first season was just a blip but the same can be said about garcia in as much as i hadn't really saw him play before he got here but a benfica fan that i work with at the time maintained that garcia was not worth the money we paid and said he wouldn't be good enough to play in our team so i'm not sure about him

 

[bumbleblue]

Happy if he stays or goes really. Personally though I hope he stays and the boss gets the best out of him. As I think he will play a different system which may suit Javi.