Manchester City Gearing Up for Squad Rotation
Manchester City have been one of the most active clubs in the summer transfer market so far. They have already bought Yaya Toure from Barcelona, Jerome Boateng from Hertha Berlin, and David Silva from Valencia.
Manchester City, who missed out on the UEFA Champions League spot last season to Tottenham Hotspurs in the English Premier League, are now reinforcing their squad to compete not only for the Champions League spot but also for the Premier League title and the Europa league.
The amount of games a professional footballer plays these days during a full football season is astounding; one cannot expect a player to start every match at full fitness and give his hundred percent for the club. This is just not possible anymore, as players play on different types of pitches, in different countries and against different oppositions, and this takes a lot out of them.
During a normal football season when the leagues are under way, a footballer is expected to play three games in seven days. Two league matches and one European cup match in midweek; and sometimes instead of the European Cup match, players play in a domestic cup match such as an FA Cup match in England, or a Copa Del Rey match in Spain.
The amount of matches these days means that firstly, a manager will have to be good at squad rotation. Secondly, all the players he has in the squad have to be almost as good as his starting eleven players, so that they can step in to do the job equally well, avoiding any shortfall in quality.
Manchester United and Chelsea have been the leaders of this trend. Their squad strength has been quite impressive in previous seasons. At a time, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson had four top class strikers in his squad. Tevez, Berbatov, Rooney and Ronaldo were all in the squad; however, only two of them started while the other two came on as subs or vice versa.
Manchester City have observed this trend and are planning to adopt it. One can say that Manchester City’s squad strength last season was impressive despite the fact that they failed to qualify for the Champions League.
Man City had strikers in the shape of Bellamy, Adebayor, Tevez, Benjani and Roque Santa Cruz last season; all quality finishers who can start for them against qualifying oppositions. In midfield, they had De Jong, Petrov, Barry, Ireland, Adam Johnson, Patrick Vieira, and Wright Phillips. In defence, they had Vincent Kompany, Kolo Toure, Onuoha, Zabaleta, Bridge, Richards, Lescott and Michael Johnson.
In this summer’s transfer window, they have already added Boateng to that defence, Silva and Toure to that midfield and are rumoured to be bidding for Edin Dzeko to add more attacking options. Mancini’s strength as the Man City manager will come to the fore in the coming season, as this squad now contains some pretty big names such as Tevez, Robinho (on loan right now), Adebayor, Lescott, Toure, Yaya Toure, Vieira, De Jong, Silva, Barry and Bellamy.
All of them will be looking to earn the respect of the Eastlands crowd, and will therefore want to play the maximum amount of games possible. Mancini will have to make them understand the team’s formation firstly and then the importance of squad rotation. Thirdly, he will also have to keep the dressing room in order, which will be a hard task to do given that the likes of Bellamy and Robinho will be sharing it with Adebayor and Vieira.
Mancini will most likely use an attacking 4-4-2 formation for City’s home games, with Tevez and Adebayor starting as strikers, while Silva and Adam Johnson starting on the wings. In the middle of midfield for the home games, he will most probably opt for Yaya Toure and De Jong.
For City’s away games, it is possible that the Italian will go for a 4-2-3-1 formation, which promises defensive organization and solidarity. Yaya Toure and De Jong will most likely start as the defensive midfielders, while Adebayor will start as the sole striker. Behind him, the offensive midfield three will most likely be made up of Silva, Bellamy and Tevez/Robinho.
One thing is for sure, that if City want to challenge on all fronts, they will need to utilize all their superstars in an effective manner. They will also need to find a core of the team, players that will not be changed for different games and will start every possible game on 100 percent fitness. This will not be an easy campaign for Manchester City, but for teams who will face them in the Premier League, it won’t be a piece of cake either.
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