Can City Afford to Keep Asonganyi and Ataba Together?
Six league games with Faris Asonganyi and Saad Ataba paired in central midfield have brought two wins and four defeats; six without one of them have brought six wins.
"It's not the pairing," Saad Ataba said after the latest one, and the figures have heard the argument before. Manchester City's season so far splits cleanly in two: 6 games with Ataba and Faris Asonganyi together in central midfield, 2 wins, 0 draws, 4 defeats, 0.8 goals scored a game and 1.0 conceded. The other 6 games, the ones where one of them was missing, read 6 wins, 0 draws, 0 defeats, 2.8 scored and 0.3 conceded. Same club, same division, same pitch. The only variable is the pair.
Asonganyi, 33, came through the youth intake in March 2046 and has spent his whole senior career at the club, give or take a loan spell at Ipswich Town and another at Luton Town; 474 games and 67 goals for City, 94 caps and 9 goals for England. Ataba, 30, arrived on a free transfer from sc Heerenveen in July 2058 and has 208 games and 27 goals for City, 87 caps and 19 goals for Morocco. Two midfielders with more than a thousand club appearances between them, and the team scores a fifth of what it manages when one of them sits down.
The goals-for column is where the trouble shows. With both on the field City average 0.8; with one of them watching, 2.8. That is a difference of two goals a game, which in this division is the difference between a contest and a procession. The defensive numbers move the other way too: 1.0 conceded against 0.3, so the pair are not simply being outgunned. They are being outscored and out-defended at once, which takes a certain kind of talent.
It is a month since the left side of this team was taken apart in these pages, Dean Stephen and Nahuel Pelayes trusted together and found wanting. City have since been rebuilding a midfield that used to pick itself, and the early returns on the new arrangement are not kind. The away end has taken to counting the goals when one of the two is withdrawn, and the count has been getting louder.
None of this is about pedigree. Asonganyi's 548 club games across three clubs and 94 England caps do not vanish because six matches went wrong; Ataba's 486 club games across four do not either. The question is arithmetic, not affection: 12 games, 6 points from the paired fixtures, 18 from the split ones. A season is long, and a sample of six is not a verdict. But a manager picks teams to win matches, and a manager's team has won every match in which one of these two did not start.
The fixture list offers no hiding place. The next opponent will arrive at the Etihad expecting to face the pair, because that is what the team sheet has said. If it says it again, the 0.8 will be watching.
Ataba, for his part, is unbowed. "You don't become a bad midfielder overnight," he said. The numbers would like a word. So, quietly, would the table: 2.8 is a lot to leave in the dressing room.