Eliaquim Mangala Leaves Manchester City

It is almost 5 years to the day since Eliaquim Mangala made a big money move to Manchester City from FC Porto.

When Mangala joined Manchester City on August 11 2014 it was for a world record transfer fee for a defender at the time – around £40 million. The exact fee was never published accurately at the time with newspaper reports of the period stating a fee of £32 million had been agreed.

There were high hopes and expectations amongst the fans that this was the defensive signing we had needed to take us onto the next level. By this point City had spent a fortune on defenders without really successfully building a competent defence. The club continued to rely upon the Belgian centre back Vincent Kompany whose arrival predated the takeover of City by Sheikh Mansour.

Mangala was a tall and imposing player who initially upon his debut looked an exciting prospect. Despite his athletic power he seemed slower at times and his early promise began to fizzle out. Whether his lack of mobility or a lack of confidence began to undermine his performances was never clear.

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By the 2015/16 season his performances were erratic. They veered from excellent defensive displays for instance against Paris Saint Germain where he shackled Zlatan Ibrahimovic to some less robust displays. To be fair to Mangala, around this time his career became disrupted with a series of muscle injuries which kept him away from the first team for increasingly lengthy periods.

The arrival of Guardiola appeared to signal the end of Mangala’s City career as within weeks he was shipped out to Valencia on loan where by all accounts he did well, playing most weeks for the full games.

The showing in Valencia seemed to be enough to earn a second chance at City and he was kept with the first team for the 2017/18 season, where in the first half of the season he made a number of appearances. The last League game he featured in was the 0:0 draw away at Crystal Palace on 31 December 2017 where he played a full 90 minutes. His last appearance in City blue was in the League Cup at home to Bristol City on 9 January 2018.

He moved to Everton in the January 2018 transfer window and became part of the Allardyce revolution. However a serious knee injury occurred a month after joining and Mangala returned to City for his rehabilitation.

Mangala missed virtually the whole of the 2018/19 season as a series of set backs saw him return to recuperation. His first comeback game was with the EDS side 3 November 2018. He made a few more appearances before a further knee injury in December 2018 put him back in the treatment room for another 4 months.

Before the season was finished he made two more appearances for the youth team but his original contract he signed at City was due to expire in the Summer. It was therefore something of a surprise when City announced he had agreed a 12 month extension to his deal.

Whether that extension was out of fairness to a player who had been unlucky with serious injury or out of favour to his agent, transfer supremo Jorge Mendes, is just a matter of conjecture. Yet it is worth pointing out that Mangala has been an excellent professional player at City.

He was a big money signing who never quite fitted in, but despite that he never grumbled and instead seemed to work hard to keep his career on track. He was noticeable by his support both for our club and our players on social media, even when he was not in the side.

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Today Valencia announced they had agreed a permanent deal for Mangala and he has agreed an initial short term contract. This marks an interesting return for Mangala back to the site of his most recent playing success. We wish him all the best for his future career and hope his injury problems are now behind him.

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