Man City will regret not signing this burly Englishman who ended up joining rivals instead

Why Manchester City will regret not signing Harry Maguire

Manchester City had a massive wake-up call over the weekend when they lost to Norwich City. They conceded 2 goals in the first half, which rang alarm bells and then conceded a very cheap 3rd goal to gift Norwich all of 3 points.

The centre-back partnership of Nicolas Ottamendi and John Stones, both of whom have been quite error-prone, becomes even more erratic when playing together.

Neither of them has the composure required of a top centre-half and with Vincent Kompany no longer at the club and Aymeric Laporte out with a long-term injury, Pep Guardiola might already be regretting the lack of transfer business to bolster the central defence.

One player they were linked with over the summer was Harry Maguire, who has gone on to join their rivals Manchester United. The England international has settled in well, with United conceding the least amount of goals alongside Liverpool.

Centre-back partnerships often require one senior centre-back, who reads the game well and brings calmness under pressure and Maguire would’ve been a great replacement for Vincent Kompany.

He’s great in the air, very good with the ball at his feet, deceptively quick and has a commanding personality to organize the defence.

Losing Laporte to injury was always going to be a possibility and given how close the title race was last season, this injury could be enough to make all the difference.

City are also expected to win the Champions League this season and that’ll require them to play their best team and Laporte would definitely have been a part of that.

By the time he’s back – or City look for a replacement – it might already be too late. It’s not just Liverpool that they’ll have to worry about as other sides in the Premier League would also be capable of troubling that defence.

Rodri will have to be solid in that holding midfield role as Fernandinho might end up playing a lot of games at centre-back now. Thus, they should’ve tried harder to sign Harry Maguire and could end up regretting.