It’s fair to say that Manchester City centre-back Joleon Lescott wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea last season. He was widely chided and ridiculed by neutrals and City fans alike who didn’t believe that he was good enough to make it at their club. As such, the 2010/11 season has been something of a turn-around for Lescott who has knuckled down and done a great job filling in for absentee Kolo Toure.
I had originally believed that Toure’s presence in the City defence would be difficult to replace, given the strength of his partnership with Vincent Kompany. Indeed, things may have been a little shaky at first whilst the transition was made, but by this stage City still have a fair shout for claiming that they have the best defence in the Premier League – something for which Lescott must take a great deal of credit.
On their day, Lescott and Kompany are as good a centre-back pairing as any other in England.
Joleon Lescott was particularly impressive during Manchester City’s Monday night outing with Blackburn Rovers. He was a dominant presence, both in the air and along the ground, won countless headers and didn’t give Blackburn’s forwards any time on the ball. Most impressive still was the fact that he was able to break up Blackburn’s play whilst managing to knock the ball down to Manchester City players.
His performance and the fact that he kept Blackburn at bay for 90 minutes, was essential in assuring that a late Edin Dzeko goal was enough to secure three valuable points for City.
I understand where the criticism of Lescott came from last season. He was sloppy, didn’t contest well enough with opposition strikers and had poor distribution. The £20m price-tag on his shoulders certainly didn’t help him either.
It’s becoming clear this season, however, that those performances were a result of a lack of regular football. Now that circumstances at City have changed and he’s subject to first team football on a weekly basis, he’s rewarding his manager with the kind of performances that I’d argue make him City’s player of the month of April.
I’m not sure who I’d choose when Kolo Toure makes his return to Manchester City. Kolo Toure also performed well for City before his ‘scandal’. He was magnificent at the start of the season, but his contribution to City began to lessen as time went on. I’d argue that Kolo is beaten to headers too often and doesn’t deal with crosses satisfactorily – something that Lescott excels at.
Whether or not Roberto Mancini favours Joleon Lescott over Kolo Toure remains to be seen, but it’s a good problem for him to have. If Manchester City are to claim fourth place this season, and it’s looking more and more likely with each passing week that they will, they’ll have their defence and in part, Joleon Lescott to thank for doing so.
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