Manchester City Debut for Eliaquim Mangala Confirms Centre-Back's Value

Thankfully for Manchester City, new centre-back Eliaquim Mangala's timing on the pitch is quite a bit better than his timing off it.

City spent £32 million to wrest Mangala from Porto in mid-August, per Jamie Jackson of The Guardian. That seemed tidy enough, as City began playing matches that counted days later.

But the Premier League season began and Mangala was not ready to play. Mangala also did not fully heal over the first international break.

Then Mangala was not able to play at the Emirates last weekend, and he perhaps most notably missed out on City's mid-week trip to Germany to open Champions League play against Bayern Munich.

City's puny haul of one point from a possible six against Arsenal (in the Premier League) and Bayern was not Mangala's fault, but he did nothing to stop it either.

Manager Manuel Pellegrini must have felt as though all of the other Premier League managers were getting to show off their new players all over the place while he was stuck with last year's unimproved side—especially with Fernando now unavailable.

There was Louis van Gaal running out Angel Di Maria, Radamel Falcao and Ander Herrera for Manchester United. Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho's job in the season's first month has been made easy by the debut of Diego Costa.

Finally, against Chelsea, Pellegrini was able to remove the bubble wrap from Mangala. What is it they say about why divorce is so expensive? Because it's worth it:

Costa did hit a post at the Etihad, but Mangala's debut in sky blue can only be fairly called spectacular.

Paul Hayward of the Telegraph assessed the performance of City's centre-backs against Costa:

"

For the first time, Diego Costa found himself up against two top Premier League centre-backs in Vincent Kompany and Eliaquim Mangala, who was superb on his debut. ...

The grappling between Kompany and Costa especially was a throwback to the days of hand-to-hand combat between strikers and stoppers.

"

The first takeaway for most City supporters upon seeing Mangala take the pitch for the first time had to be some variant of "Look at the size of that man."

It certainly was for Barney Ronay of The Guardian.

"Eliaquim Mangala and Vincent Kompany may or may not end up going down in the annals of great centre-back pairings. But if all else fails, they undoubtedly have a future as a world-class firm of piano removers," Ronay quipped.

But if being big and strong was all it took, City could have gone on with Matija Nastasic or even the departed Joleon Lescott at the back alongside Kompany.

As Mangala grew into the match with Chelsea, it was not merely his imposing size that caught the eye.

Mangala was insanely nimble for a man so large. His instincts on stepping into a challenge or staying at home were remarkable considering that he had never played at City before and had to trust unfamiliar co-workers in dangerous moments.

City supporters must be thrilled to see that the £32 million man seems like he can really play. Pellegrini has to be delighted to finally have his big-ticket item of the summer transfer window out of the shiny box.

More than any of them, though, Kompany must be beside himself with joy. Aside from very brief tenures running with Lescott, Nastasic and Martin Demichelis at centre-back, Kompany has too often been called on to captain the City side and clean up his partner's errors for weeks—months?—on end.

So it was that Kompany was able to live in Costa's shirt for much of the afternoon against Chelsea. Kompany could pay Costa the attention required because Mangala was quickly earning the Belgian's trust.

Even after the normally dependable—but always fiery—Pablo Zabaleta saw red in the second half, City were only undone defensively once on a jailbreak counter-attack following one of City's 14 impotent corner kicks. At even strength, Chelsea never seriously threatened to score. There was a lot of Mangala in that.

A review of the match highlights will show that Mangala was beaten by Chelsea's Andre Schurrle at the far post for Chelsea's goal.

Run the video back, though, and you will see that Mangala had been in the Chelsea penalty area for the ill-fated corner kick that sprung the Chelsea counter.

Watch longer, and you will see Mangala make a lung-busting run from box to box, taking Branislav Ivanovic out of the play before narrowly missing the Eden Hazard cross that found Schurrle. Mangala was not to blame for that goal.

Sergio Aguero and Edin Dzeko were similarly muted by Chelsea's defense, which may elicit cries that City should not have relied on Stevan Jovetic's chronically frail frame and let Alvaro Negredo walk away over money.

As Van Gaal's United proved against Leicester City, though, all of the attacking talent a side can buy will not save it if its underbelly is soft.

City put most of their transfer dollars this past summer into the acquisition of a man they had to wait over a month to see in action.

Mangala was totally worth the wait and, on first display, the money too.