Vital Man City was critical of Pep Guardiola’s decision to sell Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal this summer as he’d been a good servant for Manchester City and was the only senior left-back in the first-team.
Joao Cancelo operated in the makeshift role last season and did a good job, but he was better going forward than defensively. The statistics show Zinchenko is outperforming the 28-year-old in terms of ball turnover, but Cancelo is far more creative in the final third.
Where will Manchester City finish in the Premier League this season?
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th or lower
Zinchenko has made four Premier League appearances to Cancelo’s six this season, making 1.3 interceptions per game to his 1, making 2 tackles to his 1.3 and giving away 0 fouls to his 0.5 per game.
But the Ukraine international pales in comparison to Cancelo with it comes to chances (0.5 per game to his 0.7), dribbling (0.3 per game to his 1.5), passing (53.8 per game to his 88 per game) and crossing (1 per game to his 3).
Guardiola opted for the attacking fullback and deemed the defensive player surplus to requirements, but he won’t be happy with some of Cancelo’s performances this season.
He’s not looked as comfortable defensively as Zinchenko would be on the left, but City would lose a lot creatively with the latter.
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