Manchester City: Aymeric Laporte’s Injury Creates a Crisis at Center-Back
By Dan Larsen
With Aymeric Laporte facing a significant period of time out of the squad, Manchester City are facing a potential crisis in the center of their defense.
Injuries always hurt, especially when they happen to one of the team’s star players.
Unfortunately for Manchester City, however, a significant injury occurred not only to one of their star players. It happened at the one position on the pitch where they lack substantial depth in the team.
Manchester City’s best defender, Aymeric Laporte, left yesterday’s game on a stretcher after appearing to hit knees with an opposing player. Though the extent of that injury remains unknown over 24 hours after it happened, the feeling around the club is that Laporte will be out for a long time.
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The loss of Laporte comes at a pretty bad time for the club. The EPL transfer window only closed a few short weeks ago. City won’t be able to bring in a replacement, whether by loan or through a permanent transfer, until the English transfer window opens again in January.
City were already light in the center of defense entering this season, something I wrote about a few weeks before the season even began. I highlighted then that the team had only three traditional center-backs on the roster, plus a fourth at their youth level in Eric Garcia who’s very talented, but still a bit undersized for the position.
Even if Joao Cancelo was brought in (which he subsequently was), the team would likely to be forced to play someone at some point at center-back who’s a less than optimal option if an injury crisis struck. Whether it was converting Fernandinho to the position, or playing Kyle Walker there (which he did reasonably well for England at the 2018 FIFA World Cup), City were leaving themselves to be potentially exposed at the back if things went wrong.
Already in the first month of the season, those concerns about the position have played out in the darkest possible way. John Stones got hurt in the opening game of the season, and missed the subsequent three games in the league. Now, Aymeric Laporte appears slated to miss several weeks at a minimum, and could be out the rest of the year depending on the severity of his injury.
Manchester City are facing a real crisis in their heart of their defense. Though they may be able to mask their issues there in most games given how dominant they are, Laporte’s injury could be decisive in games against England and Europe’s best sides where the margins are much finer.
Laporte’s absence will require not only consistency and improvement in form from Stones and Nicolas Otamendi, both guys will need to remain healthy as well until City can seek out reinforcements in January. If they don’t, City are facing potentially the worst situation they’ve had in their defense since Guardiola took over the team in 2016-17.
Any slip-up or drop off at the back could prove costly as well, especially with Liverpool showing early signs of being just as good as they were last season when they pushed City to within a point of the League. If Laporte’s injury makes City’s defense worse against the best sides, that could mean more dropped points for them.
Next. . dark
Guardiola and the team have their work cut out for them. We’ll see if Manchester City can cope in Laporte’s absence.