Martin Keown has said that he was stunned by one decision Pep Guardiola made during Manchester City’s recent game against Aston Villa.
On Wednesday night, City fell to their third Premier League defeat of the season with a 1-0 loss against Unai Emery’s side.
Looking back on the game, one pundit has highlighted a particular move that Guardiola made in the match that he thinks was detrimental to City’s performance on the night.
Keown baffled by Guardiola decision in Villa defeat
Speaking on talkSPORT, Keown had this to say on the matter.
He said: “I was really shocked to see that they were playing Akanji in midfield. You look at the players they’ve bought, players sitting on the bench for Man City who have been bought to play in that midfield. Akanji needs to be on the backline for any of those counterattacks.”
In the absence of John Stones, who started playing in a midfield role at times last season, Akanji has ventured into this hybrid position during this campaign.
With both Stones and Akanji playing in midweek and each of them swapping between being in defence and in midfield, the fact that Villa had 22 shots at goal in total compared to City’s two suggests that having defenders in midfield isn’t always the best way to control a game.
Looking at Akanji’s performance specifically, he ended the 90 minutes having been dribbled past three times by an opponent as well as losing four of the seven duels he was involved in.
Bearing in mind how City were without Rodri in midweek due to suspension, this makes it easy to see why Guardiola kept the likes of Stones and Akanji in midfield on this occasion, even though Kalvin Phillips was on the bench.
Moving forward, if Rodri and Stones can keep fit and available, this would presumably allow Guardiola to put Akanji back in the defence where Keown thinks he is very important for the team.
