Defensive shambles endanger City - and highlight wider problem

The most amazing fact from a chaotic first leg between Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain in Paris, which ended 2-2, was that despite the evidence in front of our eyes, we were seeing the four most expensive centre-backs of all time in action: Nicolas Otamendi (£31.7m), Eliaquim Mangala (£32m), Thiago Silva (£35m) and David Luiz (£50m). You wouldn’t have known it looking at the terrible defending on display.

It was a shambolic defensive performance from both sides in the first leg. Paris Saint-Germain had one inept centre-half, in Luiz, and Manchester City had two. Mangala and Otamendi are not the best – I can’t think of a kinder way to put it.

City will have problems again tonight. Vincent Kompany will not play as he hasn’t fully recovered from his latest injury so it will likely be Mangala and Otamendi again, which will leave them very exposed through the centre.

They couldn’t risk Kompany though: it’s definitely the correct decision to leave him out. They’ve tried to rush him back before only for him to break down again and there’s no value to Pellegrini in having a centre-back who might have to go off straight away.

If you aggravate the problem again then you lose him for the rest of the season, and Belgium could be without him for the Euros. Kompany’s main focus has to be getting right for the finals in France this summer with his country, not trying to race back for his club.

PSG are lucky to an extent because Luiz is suspended. That will make them better organised at the back and stronger defensively because they won’t have anyone running out of position and they won’t have anyone giving silly fouls away in bad areas. So PSG will improve by about 70%, and that could be crucial; eradicating defensive errors could be the key to progression.

City cannot win the Champions League – their domestic form is proof of that as they haven’t been convincing at all. And when you look at the starting XI, it is no secret where their problems lie. Kevin de Bruyne, Sergio Aguero and David Silva would get into almost any team. But the jury is out on the rest of them.

Otamendi was getting rave reviews in his last season in Spain but maybe that was because his role at Valencia was all about last-ditch defending, being physical and being honest and not positioning and being a proper footballer. I expected a bit more from an Argentina international.

Mangala is always likely to do something stupid, with or without the ball. That’s the most consistent thing about him: you always know he has the capacity to make a mistake. There is no surety at all in his game.

What does the first leg say about the state of defending today? Are these really the best defenders world football has to offer? Given the resources of their respective owners, Manchester City and PSG must be the two wealthiest clubs in football and look what they have ended up with.

I always say you can buy an expensive suit, but it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to look good when you put it on. Spending such vast sums on a centre-back is no guarantee of quality, as we saw in the error-strewn and comical first leg.

Is there is crisis in the standard of defending? I’m not sure. I do think that clubs like City have changed their focus though. Previously English clubs would find talented centre-backs in the lower leagues, who had enjoyed a certain education. Now the impulse is always to look abroad for a shiny new arrival, when that isn’t always the best option.

No one is looking down the leagues any more. Everton plucked John Stones from Barnsley and cost just £3m - just look at the potential he has. Quality is not conferred by a price tag, it is inherent in the player, whoever they are playing for.

Stones is actually a good example as he highlights another big issue around how defenders are identified and analysed. All you hear about Stones is how good he is at taking the ball out from the back, a quality which has been prioritised more and more over the years. But what is really important is how good he is at defending.

That is and always will be the number one skill for a centre-back – not that you would know if by looking at the list of the most expensive defenders of all time, or the shambles we saw in Paris last week.