Why Mateo Kovačić is perfect for Manchester City

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Charlie Ellis and Rhys Desmond

After five fairly stellar and underappreciated years at Chelsea, Mateo Kovačić has left the club and signed with Manchester’s most recent treble winners. New ownership at Stamford Bridge led to a drastic rebuild from their 2021 Champions League winning squad, and the time came for one of their most consistent performers over the years to exit the building. Manchester City took full advantage, making him an apt replacement for the loss of Ilkay Gündoğan and the potential loss of silky smooth Bernardo Silva.

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Despite the Croatian just now turning 29 years old, Pep Guardiola appears to have already found a place for the journeyed midfielder as he joins the fourth Champions League winning club of his career. £30 million is a bargain, even for City, who needed to fill an İlkay Gündoğan-shaped gap preceding his departure on a free. Here is why Mateo Kovačić is perfect for Manchester City.

Positioning & Role

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Mateo Kovačić is most suitably a ‘number 8’, fulfilling the potential of each of our ‘Box to Box’ roles. He combines the defensive presence and transitional energy to play wonderfully as that ‘Shuttler’ type, but also the dribbling power to even be considered more of a ‘Midfield Maestro’.

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Regardless of role, as a mobile midfielder with defensive solidity and sharp progressive intelligence, Kovačić tends to be best suited on the left-hand side of a midfield unit. He can operate in either half space though, at times dropping more towards his centre backs and in other moments, nipping between the opposition’s defence and midfield lines.

More than most will give him credit for, Mateo Kovačić is an incredibly clever player. This is what allows him to fulfill so many different roles, participate in positional rotation, and use different skillsets for different managers.

Guardiola’s current in-possession system consists of four midfielders, forming a box shape in their 3-2-4-1. The two pivots play more as ‘number 6’s’, with the pair ahead balancing one another out, but focusing more of their energy on playing higher up the pitch.

Within the operation, İlkay Gündoğan often floated toward the ball to add more possession potential in midfield, with Kevin de Bruyne more likely to hang up high. In his more famous moments, he’d lurk in and around the left-half-spaces and then dart toward the box to score goals.

Based on the evidence we have so far of Kovačić’s career, it’s easy to see which one of these two tasks he’ll be more comfortable at achieving. However, it’s also worth noting that Kovačić has never been given full license to play that attacking role, given that his defensive solidity often required him to stay back and support Chelsea’s rest-defense.

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But with Bernardo Silva now playing primarily out wide, there’s no reason why Guardiola wouldn’t revert back to what we witnessed with Silva throughout 2021-22 and the start of last season. Silva would often drop toward the defensive unit alongside Rodri, allowing City more options out of possession. He’d then progressively carry the ball up the pitch at speed, dancing his way through opposition lines all the way into the final third.

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İlkay Gündoğan provided similar advantages with the ease at which he passes the ball, sets the tempo and reads the game.

But he didn’t have that cutting edge progressive carrying of someone like Kovačić (or Silva). This simply allows Manchester City more potential variations within their build-up, even if potentially missing Gündoğan’s magnificent space seeking in the final third.

But again, there’s no reason why Guardiola should have to change all that much if opting for Kovačić as that natural Gündoğan replacement. He’s spent years playing off the left for Chelsea, Real Madrid and Croatia, which is exactly the role that’s been freed up at City. Meanwhile, he possesses the tactical intelligence to cleverly combine with all the moving parts around him as they throw numbers into the attack.

He could easily spike higher on shot-creating-actions than we’ve seen in the past, even if not replacing the same attacking potency and goal-scoring prowess. It’s important to remember that the now 32-year-old Gündoğan only developed that skillset a few years ago, around the age of 29. Who else is 29? Mateo Kovačić.

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On that note, their total number of ‘attacking actions’ actually presents incredibly similarly (a difference of 0.02), just manifesting in different ways.

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Regardless, Kovačić naturally adds variety and versatility to a team that have a knack for switching their tactics around. Despite his excellence stepping into the role last campaign, John Stones might not be required to make that midfield move now that Guardiola has greater options.

Bernardo Silva offered his own advantages in the role previously, but lacked the combative energy that Kovačić now provides out of possession. This could mean Guardiola surprises us all, and actually holds Kovačić to a more reserved role just as Thomas Tuchel did when the Croatian formed a wonderful partnership with Jorginho.

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An adaptation period can always be expected when it comes to Manchester City, but Kovačić has the tactical intelligence and proven Premier League experience to slot into any role right away. Instead of limiting their attacking potency, Kovačić might provide more options than before.

Attacking Principles

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The progressiveness of Kovačić’s play whilst rarely misplacing a pass is quite exceptional. He picks his moments to cut the opposition’s lines, but the midfielder does so with such precision that he’s incredibly difficult to stop.

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Low drilled passes are his ‘go to’, which in City’s box midfield could work a treat in finding the number 10’s between the lines from a deeper position or if he adjusts the weighting slightly, then finding Haaland with a deft through ball may increase the Norwegian’s goal numbers further.

But the Croatian is equally capable of switching play and playing the simpler tempo setting passes, both of which will be critical to the way that City play. They often love to play with their wingers hugging the touchline, which means it then becomes a requirement for all of their central players to be capable pulling off diagonal passes.

Kovačić ranks higher than the majority of Man City’s midfielders for progressive passing statistics. As a function of that often reserved role, he’s even in the top 2% in Europe’s top five leagues for passes into the final third per 90 (8.7), whilst he compares well to someone like Rodri on progressive passes (7.9 to 8.0).

What separates him from others is his pass selection and ability to hit them so consistently, boasting an 89% pass completion in the Premier League since his arrival, despite the riskier selection. Being capable of carrying the ball before making his selection or simply playing a one-touch when required allows Kovačić to be one of the smoothest midfielders in the Premier League.

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Speaking of that carrying power, Guardiola can look forward to the midfielder’s wizardry when carrying the ball. He’s not an excessive dribbler, but incredibly savvy when motoring past opposition defenses. Taking his entire Chelsea career into account, Kovačić maintained a 77.6% success rate with his dribbles, while always posting up positive numbers for carries into the final third and total carrying distance. He simply loves to be on the ball, and this is an essential piece to the puzzle for any Manchester City player.

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When you translate that skill into a City midfield, it again means that Kovačić possesses the technical elegance to beat the press in build-up phases, and progress the play to the final third. Being an elite level scanner helps with that ability to play under pressure, where the Croatian is excellent at putting his body in between the ball and the opposing presser, helping him to escape and evade unwanted pressure.

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If Guardiola then wants to play Kovačić higher up the pitch, his close control connectivity will allow the Citizens to keep possession of the ball and combine in those tight spaces as defensive units compact. That said, the obvious drawback is that Gündoğan eventually grew into a player that netted 29 goals across his final three seasons a the club, even ranking as their top-scorer in the COVID campaign of 2020-21.

Other than one season at Inter Milan where he netted five goals and a recent run for Croatia where he’s netted two goals in his last two games of Euro Qualification, Kovačić has never shown that promise. Even in an average season at Dortmund or his early days at City, Gündoğan would net at least three goals.

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Kovačić has always been a one or two goal a season kind of player, partially down to those defensive responsibilities. We could see a different player unleashed for Guardiola in 2023-24, but the evidence isn’t there to indicate that penalty box prowess. Instead, we might see Kevin de Bruyne start banging in the goals to an even higher level, as Kovačić remains in that reserved role focused on rest-defense and progression in possession.

Defensive Principles

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Since Chelsea have always been a team heavily reliant on possession, much of Kovačić’s smart defensive work goes under the radar. He’s brilliant at knowing exactly when and where to cover spaces in transition, ensuring he can slow attacks and limit the responsibilities of those further back.

This is imperative to the way Manchester City operate, and one of the marked improvements made by their 3+2 rest-defense, and the additions of Manuel Akanji and Nathan Aké into the team. They simply excelled in recovering position last year, and Kovačić matches that intensity and awareness in a way that someone like Bernardo Silva would be naturally less competent in achieving.

Rarely ever stepping over the edge when it comes to his aggression, Kovačić still has the intensity to put a foot in when necessary and make himself a nuisance. The Croatian completed nearly 60% of his slide tackles last season, exuding wonderful timing when deciding to throw himself into action. His defensive numbers also compare well to Rodri, winning a similar amount of defensive duels (60%), and making more tackles than Rodri’s adept reading of the game that often allows for elite level intercepting.

But again, if deployed higher up the pitch, there’s no reason to think Kovačić isn’t capable of motoring back into position and recovering that deeper role Gündoğan once held. When you combine that defensive prowess with the upside of his fantastic dribbling and progressive passing, it’s easy to see why Manchester City made him their first transfer target this summer.

ConcluDING THOUGHTS

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The £30 million fee of Mateo Kovačić is an absolute coup by Guardiola and co., and presents another exciting moment in the potential tactical evolution of this Manchester City team. If playing deeper in midfield alongside Rodri, Kovačić possesses more tools to be a successful defensive partner than the likes of Silva and Gündoğan provided in the past. Playing him higher up the pitch presents some limitations, but he’s still a smooth operator to the point where he’ll excel in working his wizardry in those left-half-spaces. This signing simply gives Guardiola an abundance of options with his squad, presenting an exciting prospect for what Manchester City might conjure up in 2023-24.

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