Liverpool and Manchester City are undoubtedly the two best teams in today's Premier League, but in the 2015-16 season it was something else entirely. Liverpool were sixth in the previous season and remain skeptical about whether manager Klopp can achieve the same success in England as Borussia Dortmund. However, a 4-1 victory at the Etihad Stadium highlighted the impressive progress the Reds have made under Klopp – his first away win over Manchester City – but, from the home team's point of view, the results confirm that they are going backwards under Pellegrini, after all they just won the Premier League title two years ago. In fact, more than two months later, the Chilean was overshadowed from the Etihad Stadium and replaced by Guardiola, thus paving the way for the multi-line competition between the two teams we have witnessed this season.
And few of the City players who played against Liverpool seven years ago have been able to hold out for long under the new manager. Joe Hart, Sarnia and Navas are all outcasts, but no one has changed more than Mangala. The centre-back's oolong goal in the game he lost to Liverpool is still painful to this day. He slowly blocked firmino's ball into his own goal, leaving goalkeeper Hart helpless. For Mangara, it was a microcosm of his career at the Etihad, a time when he often looked confused and indifferent, a far cry from City's signing of the defensive gate from Porto for £42 million in 2014.
After joining Standard Liège at the age of 17 and switching from a striker to a defender, Mangara has always been considered one of the best players in the sport. He struggled to gain a foothold in the first team before being signed by Porto in 2011, attracting the attention of major European clubs after winning consecutive Portuguese Premier League titles. He was a long-term goal for City – city tried to sign him in January 2014 but gave up trying when Porto demanded £50m – and he eventually entered the Premier League that summer, becoming the second most expensive defender in the history of English football.
In the midst of the predicament surrounding Mangala, there may be some ominous signs that are coming. City delayed confirming the transfer for months, chelsea tried to cut them off at the last minute, and before the deal was officially announced, a video of his interview was posted on City's website. The club claimed they had been hacked. His Premier League debut was also postponed to his fifth game of the season in late September, but appeared to contain some great signs as his centre-back combination with Kompany was impressive in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea. However, in his next match, a 4-2 win over Hull City, he scored a oolong goal and delivered a penalty.
Pellegrini refused to blame Mangala after the match, and Kompany was quick to step up to defend his new team-mate. "For the rest of the game, he played well, he maintained his professional standards," he told reporters, "you can't ask for more." The most important thing is to stick to your work, and sometimes you get half an hour of time like that. I saw his reactions well and he did well in the second half. In fact, Mangara's numbers at Manchester City are not bad – 41 wins in 59 Premier League games, only 9 defeats, a 78% tackle success rate and 22 no goals conceded. However, these mistakes always filled his time in England, and Manchester City's match against Liverpool was the worst of the game.
Guardiola's arrival actually marked the end of Mangara's time in the first team before he was loaned to Valencia for the 2016-17 season. After briefly returning to Manchester City in the first half of the 2017-18 season – when he played nine Premier League games to win a title medal for Manchester City when he easily won the title with 100 points – he played just two games for the Toffees before Everton's loan spell ended with injury. Guardiola said in January 2018: "Mangara has helped us this season. I didn't have any doubts about his traits. Defensively, he's a top, top, top player. However, by the time Mangara finally left Mangara in the summer of 2019, he hadn't played a game in more than a year, only to become an ordinary fan in the Etihad stands after being completely ignored by Guardiola.
Plans for a permanent transfer to Valencia in 2019 were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 and he has now signed a short-term contract with Saint-Etienne to help the team relegate in Ligue 1. When the contract expires in the summer, it probably shouldn't be a surprise to see him leave again. Today, in the perception of Manchester City fans, Mangara is only synonymous with a bad defender, for example, some media used him as a disadvantageous point of comparison in August 2020, because Koulibaly did not perform well at that time, and the central defender was closely associated with the transfer of Manchester City. British media said: "Everyone is talking about how he (Koulibaly) should be calm about the ball, he is aggressive, but I see similarities with Mangara - he went to Manchester City but there he didn't really play out, so after that time I didn't fully believe in his ability. ”
Ultimately, Mangara's otherworldly qualities on the pitch – such as a fantastic heel-pumping shot from training in April 2016 – are often offset by poor decision-making and a lack of composure in possession. What people remember is only one ridiculous and fatal mistake after another, which may be unfair to him, but it is indeed the most realistic and cruel truth about the success and defeat of football.