Manchester City The Fourmidables: Oleksandr Zinchenko

Oleksandr Zinchenko became almost indispensable to Manchester City’s historic treble-winning season.

Much like the 2017-18 season, Oleksandr Zinchenko started the 2018-19 one as a reserve in the squad.

The exception, of course, was in the Carabao Cup. There, manager Pep Guardiola gave him a chance to start regularly as the team’s left-back.

Zinchenko was in the same camp as other young players like Brahim Diaz, Phil Foden, and Eric Garcia.  Guardiola saw the tournament as a chance to give significant minutes of senior football to some of City’s best young players.

Zinchenko impressed in his Carabao Cup starts, but was still rough around the edges on defense. With Benjamin Mendy back from injury at the start of the season, as well Fabian Delph being available (who had impressed in that role the year before)), Zinchenko found his minutes rather limited outside of the League Cup.

Things, however, took a massive turn in his favor in the winter months. First, Benjamin Mendy suffered a new knee injury in November that required surgery and kept him out of the team for several weeks.

At the same time that he went down,  his replacement, Fabian Delph, went through a catastrophic drop in form. All of this came to a head in Manchester City’s 2-1 loss at Leicester City in the Premier League in December. Delph made a defensive mistake that led to a goal, then compounded the issue by picking up a reckless red card late in the game.

Danilo, City’s back-up at right-back, also got a chance at the job. However, he never seemed to earn Guardiola’s favor because of his inconsistencies going forward in attack. The last straw for him would come in their 2-1 shock defeat at Newcastle.

By the end of January, then, Guardiola was out of options. Only then, did he finally give Zinchenko a chance to win the job.

Zinchenko took his opportunity and ran with it. His defensive work, which had been getting better but had remained streaky until that point, improved significantly. His skills were on full display in City’s 6-0 thrashing of Chelsea in the Premier League in early February.

He put in a man of the match level performance that day. Zinchenko made four tackles, had an interception, made two clearances, and blocked a Chelsea shot. He also provided the spark for much of City’s attack, providing two assists. Had it not been for Sergio Aguero’s hat-trick, or Raheem Sterling’s scoring double, he would have been the player of the game (he finished with a form rating of 8.73 in the match, only surpassed by Aguero and Sterling’s perfect ten).

Zinchenko continued to build off of that performance in subsequent games. He put in another excellent shift in City’s League Cup win over Chelsea, and had several more high-level performances as well in both the Premier League, and the UEFA Champions League.

His display in Manchester City’s 7-0 drubbing  of Schalke in the second leg of the UCL was nearly as good (8.64 match rating) as the one he had against Chelsea in the league. He made five tackles, had three interceptions, and also assisted a goal.

Over the final 13 appearances that he was tracked for on WhoScored.com, he finished with a match rating exceeding a seven on six occasions.

Zinchenko had moved, in just a few short weeks, from being the last man up in the squad, to an indispensable part of it. When he suffered an injury in City’s Premier League game at Cardiff on April 3rd, it really seemed like his loss would put City’s UCL and Premier League hopes in danger.

Overall, Zinchenko finished the season making 29 appearances across all competitions for the squad. He scored one goal, and assisted five others.

His form rating in his 14 appearances in the Premier League (7.19), placed him eighth best on the team. Only Benjamin Mendy, who made four less appearances in the league than him, finished with a better average match-rating among City’s defenders. His 2.4 tackles per game led the team in the league, and his 1.4 interceptions in the league was only surpassed by Nicholas Otamendi.

Zinchenko also finished the UEFA Champions League with the highest match-rating of any of Manchester City’s defenders, and was eighth highest overall in the squad.

The contributions that Oleksandr Zinchenko made to the team during their treble-winning season cannot be overstated. Had he not taken his chance in February, and excelled to the extent that he did, Manchester City would not have taken a quadruple challenge all the way to April. They may not have won the Carabao Cup for a second successive year. They almost certainly would have fallen short of the Premier League title too.

It was a dream season for him, one that may end up defining the rest of his career.

Though there were others who stood out more, there is no doubt that Zinchenko had a hallmark year at Manchester City in 2018-19. We’ll see whether he can build on that again next season.