Riyad Mahrez helped Manchester City retain the Premier League title and prove how wingers are still valuable in the modern game.
Manchester City’s Premier League title-winning season was fittingly capped by a superb display on the wings. City retained the title after beating Brighton 4-1 away on Sunday to bookend a campaign that began with a 2-0 win at Arsenal.
On both occasions, manager Pep Guardiola showed off his £60 million summer import, Riyad Mahrez. The former Leicester City winger hasn’t been a major success, but he ended Sunday with a goal and an assist, telling contributions.
Those contributions reaffirmed the value of wingers, even in the game’s modern era. The classic, chalk-on-the-boots winger has become a rarity while central-leaning schemers have dominated the sport.
Even so, Guardiola has never been afraid to reach into the past to refresh his team. He did it when he signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a traditional target man up front, for Barcelona in 2009.
Ibrahimovic didn’t prove a major success in a team built to run though diminutive technicians Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi. In truth, Guardiola’s Mahrez experiment has been a similarly mixed bag.
Yet it speaks volumes Guardiola turned back to the Algeria international when City had to win to fend off Liverpool at the end of an intense title race.
It hardly looked like an inspired move early on as Mahrez’s wide position and do-it-yourself improv disrupted the symmetry of City’s clockwork, pass-and-move machine.
Mahrez may have looked out of place in open play, but his crossing ability proved deadly from set-piece situations. The 26-year-old’s corner dropped perfectly for Aymeric Laporte to head in for a 2-1 lead, City’s first of the day after Sergio Aguero has equalized Glenn Murray’s opener.
There was better to come from Mahrez, who made the destination of the title a foregone conclusion when he slammed in a shot on 63 minutes.
The goal was typical Mahrez: Tricking his way off the flank and moving the ball into a shooting position. It’s the kind of sudden inspiration a talent this mercurial can provide.
Dancing, dribbling and slaloming toward a decisive contribution is the journey of most wingers. Possession may be frustratingly lost at the end of four out of five runs, but the best wide men, and Mahrez belongs among them, make the fifth count.
Significantly, he’s made it count most often for City away from home:
The number is a telling one, revealing why wingers remain so important.
Today’s game is all about dominating possession and denying time and space when out of it. The former can lead to predictable, sideways passing when a team finds an opponent’s shape too difficult to break down.
Stretching a defensive block beyond breaking point isn’t easy when there’s no room for passes between the lines. Teams faced with a lot of numbers sitting deep need an alternative, one a player who can take on and beat multiple markers provides.
The latter is the remit of any winger and one just as effective against relentless pressing. A go-to tactic in the modern era, pressing puts intense pressure on the ball by blocking off passing lanes and denying time for the player in possession to choose the right option.
As effective as it is, a high press can be bypassed. It takes either long and direct passing, hardly in City’s DNA on Guardiola’s watch, or else a skilled winger who can glide around and drift away from the pressers.
Mahrez has afforded City the means to overcome both methods to stop them. It’s no coincidence Guardiola chose Mahrez to start October’s early season title tilt against Liverpool, the most intense pressing team in Europe.
The 0-0 draw at Anfield was a low moment in Mahrez’s burgeoning City career. He saw a penalty saved that would have meant all three points, a gaffe he more than made up for in Brighton.
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Mahrez made amends by helping City pull apart the kind of deep defensive line Guardiola saw all too often last season. He knew he’d need something different to combat teams sitting off in numbers to crowd the middle and frustrate playmakers like David Silva and Ilkay Gundogan.
The something different has come from Mahrez.
He hasn’t proved as influential as Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva or Leroy Sane. What Mahrez has done is given a team built to own the middle another way to win matches.
It’s an ace Guardiola wisely saved for the last day and one that proves why wingers are still so important.