Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal Man City
Oleksandr Zinchenko Man City

Oleksandr Zinchenko has been preferred as the first-choice left-back by Manchester City in the Champions League this season by Guardiola but maybe he was partly at fault for City’s loss in the final on Saturday.

Kai Havertz scored the only goal of the night to hand Chelsea a 1-0 win in the final and according to pundit Rio Ferdinand, Zinchenko should have done more to stop Havertz from running behind the Man City defence and going one on one with the goalkeeper.

“Zinchenko has to go with him here, he’s at the bottom of the picture with him there,” the former England defender said, as quoted by Express.

“It’s lazy defending, go with your man, or if he stands in there and marks him, that ball doesn’t get played through

“It’s been fantastic. A chess match is what we said before the game.

“When City have been in possession, Chelsea’s midfield has been 17 yards is what they’ve got between the backline and the front line there.

“There’s no gaps in the Chelsea midfield, you cannot play through it, you can’t play around it, they can play over it maybe, but City haven’t taken the opportunities.”

Oleksandr Zinchenko has played as the first-choice left-back mainly in the Champions League this season(starting six of the nine games which he has featured in) and up until the final, he had done a more than decent job.

But many think the manager should have opted for Joao Cancelo who has had a tremendous season with Manchester City. Cancelo is primarily a right-back but he has played on the left-hand side many a time this season plus Guardiola also had the option of someone like Benjamin Mendy.

Zinchenko did get a lot of joy in the attacking departments since Man City opted to go compact during the second half of the match but defensively he was pretty average.

Whoscored has given him a rating of 7 out of 10 but this is mainly based on his attacking endeavours. During the game, he managed three successful tackles but was dribbled past three more times by the Chelsea attackers.

Read: Here’s how Thomas Tuchel masterminded Man City’s downfall in the UCL final.

Read: UEFA make a monumental change to the UCL & UEL after 56 years.

Read: Is this the main reason why Manchester City failed to beat Chelsea on Saturday night?