Biggest Issues Facing Manchester City in Final Month of 2015 Transfer Window

Modern pre-season friendlies for the bigger clubs are almost no-win affairs—except for those counting the pennies, of course.

Obviously, there’s the fitness factor that managers are supposed to be focusing on, but for many semi-interested supporters, they are just exercises in monitoring their teams and their rivals, waiting for something interesting to pop up to enjoy, become embarrassed by or mock. Something like Stuttgart being 4-0 up against Manchester City after 36 minutes.

Social media reacted with astonishment at the scoreline from the Mercedes-Benz Arena on Saturday, and although City eventually halved that deficit to a 4-2, the damage had quite literally already been done.

As Rob Pollard noted on these pages, this was a result that set the focus squarely on the City defenders—the underperformance of whom would have given Manuel Pellegrini plenty to think about ahead of his side’s Premier League opener with West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns.

Pre-season or not, a defence containing goalkeeper Joe Hart and a back four of Aleksandar Kolarov, Vincent Kompany, Eliaquim Mangala and Bacary Sagna should not be conceding four goals to Stuttgart, let alone inside the first half.

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We all know about the vast fee that City paid for Mangala when he was signed from Porto last summer, but in addition to that, these are five players who have a staggering 221 international caps between them. This wasn’t exactly 16-year-old Cameron Humphreys facing Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema again, as the teenager did in the friendly with Real Madrid at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

What it was, though, was perhaps an argument that City need to freshen things up with some young blood in defence—although blood that is a little older than Humphreys’.

In the past week, it has been interesting to note the reports—such as this one in the Daily Mirror—indicating that the club are considering muscling in on Chelsea’s bid for Everton defender John Stones, who remains on Merseyside for the time being.

A switch from Roberto Martinez’s Blues to Jose Mourinho’s Blues might still be on the cards, but as City have shown this summer with the purchases of Raheem Sterling and Fabian Delph, paying the expensive “English premium” for exciting homegrown players doesn’t seem to faze them, and a move for Stones might well be worth it.

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With Kompany creaking, Mangala still failing to justify his transfer fee and Martin Demichelis turning 35 in December, signing a young centre-back with experience of the Premier League would seem to suit City. Stones, meanwhile, would surely feel he’d get more game time at the Etihad Stadium than at Stamford Bridge right from the start.

His would be a move that would shake up a defence clearly in need of shaking up, given that performance at Stuttgart, and it would also add to the belief City are going through something of a much-needed revolution this summer.

As one of the most gifted young attackers around, Sterling is the poster boy for that, but with their well-publicised interest in Wolfsburg’s Kevin De Bruyne—as reported by Jeremy Cross in the Daily Star—having so far come to nothing, perhaps there is a sense that City need to add another young attacker to give the impression they haven’t missed out on one of their main aims this summer.

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With Edin Dzeko on the verge of a move to Roma, according to ESPN FC, the Bosnian’s departure would create a space in the squad to fill, a vacant No. 10 shirt and the chance to fill it with another young talent on Sterling’s level.

De Bruyne would fit that bill and would suddenly turn City into a different proposition attacking-wise to the one we saw last season.

In Sterling and Delph—not to mention Patrick Roberts, who might have to wait a while to get into the first team—there is a prevailing belief Pellegrini has bought well this summer. But as we enter the final month of the transfer window, he should seize the chance to finish off the good work he’s started by signing two players who would top things off nicely for him and City.

Stones and De Bruyne would do that, and they would ensure everyone will have forgotten about Stuttgart soon enough.