Manchester City is closing in on Premier League leaders Arsenal, lying just five points behind the north London club, and the title race looks certain to be an exciting one this season.
With the transfer window open, Pep Guardiola will be looking to sign a player or two to bolster his team ahead of a key few months.
The left-back position has been a source of contention for City this season, with Joao Cancelo, Nathan Ake, and Sergio Gomez all making appearances with varying degrees of success.
As a result, the club has been linked with Real Madrid defender Ferland Mendy, who has yet to sign a new contract with the La Liga giants.
A potential transfer is suggested to cost something similar to the £47m fee Madrid paid to Lyon back in 2019, something that shouldn’t represent a problem for the vast City coffers.
Guardiola could also get an added bonus by the simple fact that Mendy is statistically similar to right-back Kyle Walker, who has had tremendous success at the club during his five-and-a-half-year spell.
According to FBref, the Englishman is the seventh-most similar player to Mendy across Europe’s top five leagues, and given how impressive Walker has been at City under Guardiola, he might be able to repeat the process, albeit on the opposite flank.
This season has seen the two full-backs register extremely similar statistics when it comes to pass success rate (92% to 89.2%), shot-creating actions per match (2.26 to 1.49), goal-creating actions (two to one) and aerial duels won (both seven).
Mendy might add an elite mentality to the City group; not only does he excel in Guardiola’s desired attributes like passing and dribbling, but he also knows how to win at the highest level, having won two La Liga crowns and a Champions League trophy during his time at Real Madrid.
When he was at Real Madrid, ex-teammate Raphael Varane described him as “fantastic,” and he may fit in well at City.
It is a credit to how well Guardiola’s team has performed this season while employing both a center-back and a right-back on the left wing signing Mendy would fix this problem while also adding a player who is very similar to Walker, which is an added advantage.
