An Argument for Why Matija Nastasic Will Not Play for Manchester City Again

Matija Nastasic will not play for Manchester City again because Manuel Pellegrini has no use for him and because Roberto Mancini is not coming back to the Etihad.

"Schalke have completed the transfer of Serbia defender Matija Nastasic from Manchester City," the Associated Press reported recently (h/t ESPNFC.com). "Nastasic will join the Bundesliga club on loan until the end of the season but Schalke have the option to buy out his City contract, which runs through 2017."

Nastasic's coda at City underscores how temporary a professional athlete's security and status always are.

Not long ago, Nastasic looked to be a building block for the future that had appreciated significantly from the reported £12 million he cost to acquire in August 2012. Really, he was the only City signing from the summer of 2012 who amounted to anything in sky blue.

Scott Sinclair, Maicon, Javi Garcia and Jack Rodwell were all crushing disappointments for City, but Nastasic emerged in the second half of the 2012-13 season to form a terrifying partnership with Vincent Kompany.

Typical City's David Mooney observed recently that while Nastasic bloomed under Mancini, he all but disappeared once Pellegrini took over:

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When Manuel Pellegrini arrived, the Chilean announced everybody would start his tenure with a clean slate. But the ‘Year Zero’ approach punishes those who had performed the best – just as Nastasic had excelled, he had to do it all again.

"

Nastasic was the presumptive starter alongside Kompany to begin the 2013-14 season. But he sustained a nasty injury in a preseason tournament that cost him his starting place. Then he picked up a knee injury that all but ended his season.

Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Nastasic made only 11 Premier League starts last season, 10 fewer than he did in 2012-13, after beginning that season on the bench. Unfortunately for Nastasic, those starts included some woeful performances, none worse than his mishap at Stamford Bridge.

And this year, Nastasic has been practically invisible at City.

"By mid-October," Mooney noted, "Pellegrini told a press conference: 'I think that we have four centrebacks: Kompany, (Martin) Demichelis, (Eliaquim) Mangala, (Dedryck) Boyata.' When he was prompted by one of the journalists, he then added that he 'forgot Nastasic, also.'”

Managerial disapproval does not get clearer than that.

It is not money that motivated this loan deal with Schalke. City have invested plenty in their back line, including the extravagant purchase of Mangala, which continues to be a questionable investment.

Rather, it is Pellegrini's explicit and implicit refusal to consider Nastasic at all that has seen him off.

And it is not like a rash of injuries could conceivably compel Pellegrini to give Nastasic another chance after his loan deal expires. City suffered numerous injuries on the back line this past fall, but Nastasic never featured.

Nastasic's City epitaph was aptly put by Jamie Jackson in The Guardian: "Nastasic has fallen out of favour under Manuel Pellegrini, the manager believing Dedryck Boyata is a better prospect as a central defender despite the Serb coming close to being City’s player of the season two years ago for Roberto Mancini."

Nastasic may yet flourish again in football, but it will not happen on the blue side of Manchester.