Manchester City drifted further away from securing a third consecutive Premier League title after losing 2-1 to Manchester United on Saturday. The defeat leaves Pep Guardiola’s side in third place, 14 points off the league leaders Liverpool. Although few things have gone the Spaniard’s way this season after losing crucial players to injury, one shrewd piece of business was resigning Spanish left-back Angelino from PSV.
Angelino was only gone for one season permanently, but he made a big impression, so much so that the Sky Blues immediately triggered a buy-back clause that saw the defender return to the Etihad Stadium. While in the Netherlands Angelino played 34 Eredivisie matches, making nine assists and scoring once. It was an outstanding return for the defender that obviously impressed his former club.
It has certainly proven to be a shrewd decision by the Spanish tactician to bring the left-sided defender back to Manchester. Against their cross-city rivals, he made the joint-most tackles, interceptions and clearances of any player on his team, proving his capability against elite opposition. While going forward, only Kevin De Bruyne made more crosses, showing Angelino can also be an asset in the opposition’s half.
Left-back has been a weak point for some time at Manchester City with no one player managing to hold down the role for more than a season. Previously Fabian Delph deputised there, last season Oleksandr Zinchenko filled the void, while Benjamin Mendy has played a spattering of games in the role. Still, sadly, due to injury, he has never been able to hold it down consistently.
What this means is that amongst a squad were the majority of positions are fairly nailed down, there is one role up for grabs, and at 22-years-old Angelino is the youngest natural left-back in the squad. Due to the turbulence occurring on the left side of the defence, Guardiola was correct to bring the player back to England in an attempt to add some stability to the role.
