Setting out Manuel Pellegrini's Best Midfield Setup for Rest of the Season

Manchester City's midfield has been beset by injuries at a rate that exceeds even what might fairly be expected of a club that plays so many matches.

It is not just the midfield that has suffered, of course.

All three of City's strikers have missed significant time this season, and City "may have to play through the Christmas programme without a recognised senior striker and their captain after a costly 1-0 victory over Premier League bottom side Leicester," wrote Andy Hampson in The Independent.

Hampson was referring to City captain Vincent Kompany, who along with fellow defenders Aleksandar Kolarov and Eliaquim Mangala have missed handfuls of matches this season.

It's a funny thing, though: None of the injuries to the back line or to the strikers has anyone seriously questioning who makes the preferred City XI if everyone is fit.

When City play a 4-4-2, Aguero and Edin Dzeko are the starters, and Kolarov (or maybe Gael Clichy), Kompany, Mangala and Pablo Zabaleta hold the line in front of goalkeeper Joe Hart. These are City's best players at these positions, and they are the ones manager Manuel Pellegrini will almost certainly trust.

But the relatively certain nature of who City's best players are even despite injury does not, for some reason, translate to the midfield.

At the beginning of the season, when City's midfielders were all more or less healthy, Pellegrini started Samir Nasri, Fernando, Yaya Toure and David Silva. He did this for a reason: Those are City's four best midfielders, and Pellegrini needed to get the season started right against Newcastle United.

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Since then, the injury plague that has engulfed City has also passed over Pellegrini's midfielders. Silva missed all of November. Fernando missed all of September. Nasri missed a month after City drew with Chelsea.

Ironically, the only one of the quartet who started in the midfield for City against Newcastle to remain healthy so far this season is the one the pundits always seem ready to bench.

Toure has started 22 matches for City in all competitions this season. He has also appeared as a substitute twice. It was the two matches he was disqualified from, though, that set tongues wagging as to whether Toure belongs on the pitch when City are playing at the highest level of the game.

"If City play their best Premier League team—that's Aguero and Dzeko up front, Silva and Nasri out wide, and Toure as part of the midfield—you cannot play that way in Europe because Nasri and Silva do not play defensively," said Gary Neville on Sky Sports, according to Samuel Luckhurst in the Manchester Evening News.

All right, so the obvious answer to that problem is to drop Nasri for James Milner or Fernandinho, right? Wrong, according to Neville.

"When Yaya Toure plays he's a game-changer and a goalscorer, but his defensive play can be easily played around—we've seen that in the Premier League and in European games," Neville continued. "If you go away to Barcelona you can’t play with Silva, Nasri, Dzeko, Aguero and Toure in the same side."

And of that group, Neville would sit Toure. Which is insanity.

Maybe Toure will never figure out Champions League football. Everyone knows that his history in the competition is sketchy, and the fact that City beat Bayern Munich and AS Roma in succession without him to survive Champions League Group E does little for Toure's case.

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But decisions like sitting Toure so someone like Fernandinho or Milner can play are the sorts of "look how smart I am" decisions that usually end up looking pretty foolish.

Perhaps the best thing Pellegrini could do is, at least in the Champions League, finally concede that playing two strikers is a recipe for disaster. Dropping Dzeko means having room for another defensive midfielder, which allows Toure to pour forward and create chances.

As long as Pellegrini sticks to his beloved 4-4-2, though, Dzeko (or Stevan Jovetic) will play with Aguero. That does not mean Toure should sit.

Pellegrini's four best midfielders today are the same four he started against Newcastle in August. If all four are healthy when City play their most important matches, then all four should start.

The season to this point has dictated that City get significant contributions from all of their midfielders, and they have. We haven't even mentioned Frank Lampard yet, and all he has done so far is win the match with Leicester City last weekend and save 10-man City's hide against Chelsea at the Etihad.

When the biggest matches are scheduled, though, if the foursome of Nasri, Fernando, Toure and Silva are healthy, then they have to play.

Hopefully, Pellegrini will not be tempted to out-think himself when the crucial moments come in the new year.