5 underlying problems for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City 

#3 Liabilities at left-back

Benjamin Mendy has failed to live up to his price-tag in what is his third season at Manchester City

Manchester City’s left-back position has been consistently up for debate since Pep Guardiola’s arrival in 2016. The incoming Bayern Munich manager had Gael Clichy and Aleksander Kolarov at his disposal, both excellent servants for the club, however, in their thirties. The duo could not match their new manager’s standards of playing with Guardiola often deploying Fernandinho at left-back. At the end of the season, however, the City hierarchy understood that it was time to bring in fresh blood.

Benjamin Mendy moved to the Etihad on a then world-record transfer fee for a defender after an excellent season with Monaco winning the Ligue 1 and reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League. However, the Frenchman suffered a cruel cruciate ligament injury which ruled him out of almost the entire season. He has since then been a victim of multiple injury problems, which prevented him from playing a crucial role in City’s back-to-back title-winning campaigns.

Central midfielder Fabian Delph, who struggled to thrive among the City superstars, bagged a role at left-back and made it his own in the 2017/18 season. However, after making several high-profile errors last season, the Englishman played second-fiddle to another makeshift-left-back in Oleksandr Zinchenko.

The Ukrainian youngster is a natural attacking midfielder, and therefore is not the cleanest defender. However, he has done a decent job for Guardiola and has somewhat become his first-choice at the left-back position.

Angelino was one of the worst performers on Saturday against Manchester United

The club bought back homegrown defender Angelino from PSV Eindhoven at the start of this season given Mendy’s injury record. However, the 22-year-old has only shown his rawness and rash decision-making in the last few games. Against United, Angelino was all over the place. Though he showed an effective attacking instinct, he was dreadful defensively. Zinchenko is still nursing a knee injury while Mendy has been atrocious whenever he has played this season. Joao Cancelo, another summer signing, can also play at left-back, but he has to constantly rotate with Kyle Walker given the number of games City play.

There’s no doubt that Manchester City have had a serious dearth of world-class left-backs in the past decade or so and seeing the likes of Andy Robertson making headlines for Liverpool each week, it looks like Guardiola will have to resort to the transfer window once again.