Player topic: Eliaquim Mangala (2014/15)

[Bluewonder]

Re: Mangala

1. Fact
2. Opinion with no factual basis
3. Hopefulness with no factual basis

Still, one out of three ain't bad

better in a lot of categories, dont you think, without the added benefit of 1 year of PL experience?
will improve definitely

Jesus Christ,

STATISTICS CANNOT BE USED TO COMPARE ACROSS PLAYERS AND CANNOT BE USED TO MAKE ANY OBSERVATIONS ON PLAYERS OR THEIR HABITS.

The misuses of statistics within football fans drives me mad. Just because something is a number doesn't mean that it is any more correct or factual than "I like him because I think he's better"

Totally agree with this. Arsenal scout, Giles Grimandi: "Statistics allow people with little knowledge to exist."

 

[City_Sean]

Re: Mangala

I'd still make the point for him that he hasn't played in a settled back four, also worth remembering that it took a while for Kompany last year to get used to our high line, I think he'll be a star for us.

 

[Lancet Fluke]

Re: Mangala

captain kompany ain't exactly spotless either.
rash, impetuous and that's just this season after how
many years experience. defender's make mistakes.....
Silva makes mistakes. aguero was called selfish plenty
of times this season when he missed chances with player's
in better positions to score and he didn't pass.
new system, new country give mangala a break.

I think this is mainly due to the way they are told to defend under Pellegrini. They are clearly told to hold a high line and to dive in and try to win the ball as often as possible. Personally I can't stand it, we have some really good defenders and if they were to defend properly (well what I see as properly) then I think we could be incredible defensively but as it is, I don't see that any defender in the world wouldn't look rash and impetuous playing for us at the moment.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Re: Mangala

captain kompany ain't exactly spotless either.
rash, impetuous and that's just this season after how
many years experience. defender's make mistakes.....
Silva makes mistakes. aguero was called selfish plenty
of times this season when he missed chances with player's
in better positions to score and he didn't pass.
new system, new country give mangala a break.

I think this is mainly due to the way they are told to defend under Pellegrini. They are clearly told to hold a high line and to dive in and try to win the ball as often as possible. Personally I can't stand it, we have some really good defenders and if they were to defend properly (well what I see as properly) then I think we could be incredible defensively but as it is, I don't see that any defender in the world wouldn't look rash and impetuous playing for us at the moment.

It is a difficult job & I think it leads to moments of serious confusion at times. And it needs players who are either quick, or very mentally quick (preferably both) to get it right. Demichelis, for all his experience, was making a right unholy mess of it when he first arrived. Rushing out to everything & not getting there, leaving gaps behind.

In another league it would be possible just to put lighter, more agile players there, but in the Prem, the centre backs have to be able to take a right battering as well. That's why it's the toughest on defenders, & why we can only trust a small number of players to do the job, if we're playing so open at City. I wouldn't fancy Terry & Cahill trying to play the way our cbs have to. They're fucked if Matic etc has a bad day, even in their system.

 

[Damocles]

Re: Mangala

while I generally agree with you (for e.g the no. of times I have seen the key passes stats to back nasri up - good player IMO but isn't better than Silva creatively), they are sometimes useful in portraying certain aspects.

No they're not. Or at least none of them that are posted on here are because they're far FAR too wide to actually tell you anything.

as far as comparing the players in question concerned, it tells that mangala is better aerially and that is something that matches what I see.

we go on about nastasic reading the game better and that is shown in his interceptions being slightly better

It shows you nothing. You're attempting to make the statistics say something that they don't say.

Let me give you an example using a random one of those metrics (and you can pick another if you're unhappy with this one); aerial duels won. Surely Mangala winning more aerial duels means he's better in the air right?

No. Let's say we're playing against Peter Crouch and Lionel Messi up front, if you put your best header on Crouch and the poorer headerer on Messi, who is going to have a better aerial duels won percentage? Let's say that we're playing a long ball team with one up front one week where Mangala plays, and the next week we're playing Arsenal. Who has the better heading statistics then?
What about goal kicks? Let's say that both of our left sided centre backs are tasked with stepping up and winning the initial header on a goal kick and the defensive midfielder is supposed to win the second ball. In one game we play Nasri, Silva, Aguero and Dzeko up front and the next we play Jovetic up top on his own. Do you think that might affect how many headers are won by goal kicks?

My point is, statistics are incredibly, incredibly overused by fans. You're right that they do have a meaning but not the types of statistics that people post. Things like the percentage of corners taken to the front post, that is a useful metric. As is the number of miscontrolled touchs with the left foot to the right or even something like percentage of touches on each foot can point towards a trend though it doesn't confirm it.

The professionals in football, the Performance Analysis teams who work at the clubs, none of them have even worked out how to use "pass completion" to say anything at all let alone some of the wider stats and they're both experts in football and statistical analysis.

 

[Corazondezaba]

Re: Mangala

Reading all mixture of views on Mangala here. For me, as it appears to be overall on the forum, the jury is still out. It took a while to sign him, and I feel he held out for a little bit in coming. You compare this Fernandinho for example, who forfeited a lot of money to come to City at the first bit of the cherry, it was harder to accept Mangala as just one of us.

You put it to one side, because he had become a blue, and you back him on the pitch, you have faith he'll be the calibre of player he believes he is and the price tag even suggests. He's as good as someone is willing to pay for him, and he's not 32/38's as good as Aguero. Of course money shouldn't always be the barometer of a players talent, but it is a factor.

People are saying he will come good. We have a veteran centre half who's pace will deteriorate more rapidly and Kompany is in danger of becoming injury prone. Be honest.

We didn't sign a player to come good, we signed a player to fit in to a Champions League team. It's fair to say there is some adapting, but look at some of the goals he's been at fault for. The own goal at Hull. That's like saying no-ne crossed the ball in Portugal and you didn't have to defend aerially at the front post.

He's a blue, I'll back him, but I just expected a bit more, the way the transfer played out. I thought we were getting something really special, and it's just not beed as good as we'd hoped so far.

 

[rapidCT]

Re: Mangala

Hello. The problem with Mangala is that we never built up on our succes. How many years now that we did not manage to bring a proper partner to Kompany? Mangala could be grate, but not yet, not for those money. Why didn t we signed Thiago Silva when we got the opportunity? Or now, we already have a great youngster in Nastasic, why didn t we went for Ramos or Hummels? All that feeling that we are almost there and we always slip. Anyway, he is here now, wish him the best and I think he will turn out to be at least as good as Boateng.
PS: Sorry for any mistakes.

 

[fatbloke]

Re: Mangala

captain kompany ain't exactly spotless either.
rash, impetuous and that's just this season after how
many years experience. defender's make mistakes.....
Silva makes mistakes. aguero was called selfish plenty
of times this season when he missed chances with player's
in better positions to score and he didn't pass.
new system, new country give mangala a break.

I think this is mainly due to the way they are told to defend under Pellegrini. They are clearly told to hold a high line and to dive in and try to win the ball as often as possible. Personally I can't stand it, we have some really good defenders and if they were to defend properly (well what I see as properly) then I think we could be incredible defensively but as it is, I don't see that any defender in the world wouldn't look rash and impetuous playing for us at the moment.

Our style of defending is risky but it's a necessary evil as far as I'm concerned because if you constantly drop deep and don't attempt to tackle you will have huge periods in games when you don't have possession. With the players we have at our disposal I say attack is the best form of defence. We haven't got the pace to play on the counter-attack.

 

[mosssideblue]

Re: Mangala

Iv'e said it on an earlier post to this thread that Eli didn't price himself at £30m+, his seller did.

City had been courting this guy for some time and new exactly what they were getting for this money. Whether they saw him as a rough diamond or a near finished article, it was their call and I trust their judgement on this.

Think we should cut the guy some slack until at least the end of this season to see whether he is what we all want him to be.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Re: Mangala

A lot of the difficulties he has had have been evident in all the other CB we have had over recent years, plenty of iffy games for the likes of MDM, Nasty and Lescot even komps at times. All comes down to the way we set the midfield/wing backs up and the balance of discipline / attacking freedom the manager promotes.

I think we have better CBs than Chelsea however they play with more discipline and a more conservative defensive mind set. Mourinho is the king of 1-0 wins in tough games. We tend to be more shit or bust. When its bust everyone gets on the back of individuals where at times we leave acres of space down the wings and in front of the CBs. I don’t think many CBs would cope as well as Mangala has to our style.