Why Otamendi is Guardiola's finest individual transformation at City
Just over 10 minutes into the second half, Manchester City's defence crumpled. Vincent Kompany, a twitchier player since his unfortunate record with strains and pulls, missed a header, allowing Kenneth Zohore to hone in on a goal fearfully guarded by Claudio Bravo. Cardiff City was about to half the deficit.
That was until Nicolas Otamendi mopped up and knocked the ball from danger.
It was another measured performance from the Argentinian in Sunday's 2-0 FA Cup fourth-round victory. Pep Guardiola has been credited with overseeing the reinvention of some players - Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko as ersatz left-backs - or the clear improvements of others - Raheem Sterling being an obvious example, while Sergio Aguero's contribution to more phases of play is overlooked - at City but, in Otamendi, the manager may have his greatest individual transformation yet.
The other players were simply more malleable. Delph is tactically gifted and was always an obvious left-back candidate, and Aguero's early-career omnipresence Independiente's attack drew comparisons to Romario - he just lapsed into something closer to a poacher role in England. Zinchenko and Sterling, meanwhile, are young and have plenty of information to be loaded onto their hard drives.
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
Otamendi was different, a centre-back of stubborn simplicity and misplaced physicality. He had a tendency to switch off. He unfurled himself into tackles like a swan readying to land on a serene river, but it regularly ended in a hubbub of feathers and splashes. Otamendi was a liability and, given he was 29 heading into the 2017-18 term, he was in the tail end of his top-level career. It's difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.
Failed pursuits for Leonardo Bonucci and Aymeric Laporte were evidence of Guardiola's dissatisfaction with Otamendi, and indeed Kompany, Eliaquim Mangala, and Tosin Adarabioyo, the extremely raw youth-team graduate. The tactician was looking for an alternative partner for John Stones, but when nothing materialised, Guardiola was forced to persevere.
Otamendi has been a revelation, with his improvements evident in statistics plucked from his Premier League endeavours:
| 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accurate short passes per 90 minutes | 41.2 | 56.8 | 81.4 |
| Accurate long passes per 90 minutes | 3.3 | 2.8 | 4.2 |
| Key pass every x minutes | 534.4 | 432 | 290 |
| Attempted tackles per 90 minutes | 4.4 | 3 | 2.5 |
| Fouls per 90 minutes | 1 | 1 | 0.8 |
| Total dribbles per 90 minutes | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.2 |
| Dispossessed every x minutes | 381.7 | 432 | 2051 |
When Stones was absent through injury over the latter part of 2017 and during his first few matches back, Otamendi was the defender who strode upfield and dispersed passes around the park. His distribution was often sublime. For Sunday's FA Cup meeting in Cardiff, Guardiola instead chose to unshackle Kompany as the ball-playing defender - his first season at City was played in Mark Hughes' midfield - meaning Otamendi was the last man back. He treated the role with an unfussy professionalism, winning more aerial duels, performing more interceptions, and clubbing more clearances than any of his teammates. Even in a withdrawn posting, only three players on the park touched the ball more, none of whom represented the home side.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, Guardiola has revived his chase for Laporte this January. He's a like-for-like replacement of Mangala, arguably City's worst signing since the coffers were filled with petrodollars, and will alleviate pressure on Kompany's calf muscles. However, despite recently inking a contract until 2022, there will be questions surrounding Otamendi's status in the squad.
If Stones or Laporte are benched, Guardiola will be slammed for refusing to field a partnership he paid in excess of £100 million for. Something has to give for them to play in his preferred back-four, and it would have to be Otamendi, a throwback to a Manuel Pellegrini regime that was faltering in its later months.
But Otamendi should continue to be a fixture in the starting lineup. The ill-disciplined and susceptible member of the defence has developed into one of the most reliable players in the first XI, and Guardiola must take full credit. The Spaniard cannot be the one to cruelly sever his minutes in favour of a Stones-Laporte duo when he has added so much maturity and orderliness to Otamendi's game.