As FPL managers around the world debate what to do with City assets a key factor in their performances, or often lack thereof, that has been overlooked is Aymeric Laporte. For much of last season and the start of this one, the Frenchman stood head and shoulders above every defender in the league and was, arguably, the only defender even close to Virgil van Dijk. But this season he was struck by a serious knee injury just six gameweeks into the season. The impact of this has, in my opinion, been severely overlooked.
The first issue arises with City’s style of play and the personnel required to implement it. It has become obvious that even if both were fit Pep doesn’t trust a pairing of John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi either defensively or to be his playmaker from defence. The result is that he has drafted in Fernandino as an auxiliary centre-half to fill that playmaker role.
This has had a two-fold effect due to pulling the Brazilian from his natural role at the base of the midfield (Rodri is a fine player but he isn’t in the same mould). Firstly let’s look at the defence.
With Laporte City were averaging six shots conceded per game, without him this goes up to 8.5. If we exclude set pieces we see City conceding just three shots per game with Laporte compared to six without him. If we look at the rate of chances we see City conceding a chance roughly every 16 minutes with Laporte compared to just over every 11 minutes without.
Immediately we can see that difference Laporte makes to the City defence. He is the leader, the organiser and their best defender (especially now there’s no Vincent Kompany). City’s defence is significantly weaker without him. But that’s not really that much of a surprise really, you would expect any team to be poorer defensively if you take their best defender out.
What’s more telling is the change in City’s attack. With Laporte City were averaging 17 chances per game, without him this drops to 15. In terms of actual goal attempts, we see a change from 21 shots with, compared to 20 without. Although these differences are small it’s unusual for the absence of a centre-back to have such an effect. If we look at Big Chances we see City averaging 4.5 per game with Laporte compared to 2.5 without, at a rate of 1 every 18 minutes with against compared to 28 minutes without.
Whilst it’s worth considering that the sample size is much smaller with Laporte, the sample size without includes the Watford 8-0. For me, this changes how we need to assess City. They haven’t suddenly become a bad team – Sterling, KDB etc haven’t suddenly become bad picks. We need to consider the changes in team structure and style of play that Pep has been forced to implement in Laporte’s absence. His return when it comes could be the ticket we need.
