Analysis of Manchester City's recent transfers

Fernandinho

Fernandinho

Europe has been a huge disappointment for City, having been eliminated in the group stages in the last two seasons. One area where the European teams exploited City was the central midfield position. City have struggled to play teams that play high pressing football, which has happened in Europe (notably against Dortmund) and domestically against Southampton.

Fernandinho, who is a quality addition, was brought in to help City develop in this regard. Fernandinho is a seasoned campaigner and his experience with Europe could help richly.

One could argue that his price tag (£30m) is quite high for a 28-year-old, especially in the context that he is international understudy to Paulinho, who cost Spurs £17 million and is just 24, but no-one who has witnessed him feature for Shakhtar can deny his abilities.

Fernandinho is a box-to-box midfielder who is equally adept in both attack and defence. Breaking up the play is an important aspect of the game but is often ignored. Barring Barry and with De Jong sold, there was no one in the City team who could breakup the attack effectively.

Fernandinho can play a big role in this department with the Brazilian completing an impressive 3.4 tackles per game and 3.9 interceptions per game on average in Europe last season.

This demonstrates that he is capable of winning the ball in defensive areas and then helping transitions to attack by utilizing his impressive range of passing and bringing the more attack minded players into play.

In fact, he is also capable of breaking out from the base of midfield on his own with no player completing more successful dribbles than him in last season’s Champions League (with 31) despite the club being knocked out in the last 16.