When Manuel Pellegrini announced his team sheet for Tuesday night’s match with Barcelona, there seemed one obvious weak link -- Martin Demichelis.It wasn’t just that the Argentine was in the side at centre-back, a position he’s struggled in throughout his short Manchester City career; it was also that Pellegrini wasn’t playing an extra holding midfielder. Some suggested Javi Garcia might start deep in midfield, in an attempt to minimise the space afforded to Lionel Messi, Barcelona’s main threat.
Instead, however, Demichelis and Vincent Kompany were forced to deal with him themselves -- and with Messi always drifting to the right flank, that meant Demichelis had the greatest responsibility for stopping his opponent.
We all know the outcome -- Demichelis fouled Messi, resulting in a penalty, a red card and Barcelona taking the lead and seemingly winning the tie. The sad thing, from Demichelis’ point of view, is that he’d performed extremely well until that point, and his skill in the centre of midfield meant he was comfortable stepping forward to intercept balls played into Messi’s feet, defending against him proactively and positively. His distribution was nervous, certainly, but his defending had been fine.
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