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Signed from Russian side Ufa back in 2016, a young Ukrainian by the name of Oleksandr Zinchenko was primarily an attacking midfielder – he had starred at club level in the role, and over 10 of his first appearances for the national team came in that spot behind the striker.
In addition to the fact that he was an exciting young talent, the Citizens were attracted to Zinchenko as a result of his versatility across the midfield, basically making the decision to spend a bargain £1.7m on him a no-brainer.
However, after a fruitless spell out on loan with PSV Eindhoven, his future at the club seemed uncertain – the decision to splash out £52m on Benjamin Mendy had also happened soon after Zinchenko returned from Holland to Manchester.
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The Ukrainian resisted offers of another loan move away, and eventually got his chance in the team at left-back after an injury to Mendy, having also impressed Pep Guardiola in training.
Now, almost two years on from that summer, Zinchenko has been trusted by Guardiola to start in the Manchester derby, a game that City simply had to win in order to stay ahead of an unrelenting Liverpool side vying for their crown.
Mendy was a doubt for the fixture with an slight issue, although that doesn’t take anything away from the young Ukrainian’s excellent performance; one that looked equal to or even arguably better than what Mendy could have mustered up.
Whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing, perhaps if the Citizens had thought ahead with their plans for Zinchenko, they wouldn’t have needed to spend such a huge fee in order to acquire Mendy in the first place.
The France international has impressed when he has made it out onto the pitch, although he has suffered two very serious injuries since arriving at the Etihad Stadium, whilst also testing Guardiola’s patience with his use of social media and late-night antics.
You can’t deny that City are extremely advanced in the way that they go about their business nowadays, but if they had laid out a clear strategy for their use of Zinchenko and placed a bit of faith in him, they could’ve saved millions by not needing to sign Mendy.