Nastasic ruled out for three weeks

[Mikhail Chigorin]

It's not always the 'best' players who make the best partnerships.

In spite of all the perceived/purported faults and putative lack of pace of the Lescott/Demichelis pairing, in reality these two individuals might be able to complement each other and form a useful defensive unit which might surprise.

If I was Pellegrini, I'd be more than happy to play them together for the next few games.

[nottsblue]

Looks like it's Lescott & Demi for next few weeks. Who knows. A defensive partnership where both have lots of experience and know how to actually defend & get in the way & make blocks & interceptions might do well. The argument they "are not ball playing defenders" is one i could not give a toss over. It's Yaya or Fernandinhos job to come and get ball off them. Let them fuckers do some donkey work. Be nice if they tracked back once in a while but you cant have cake and eat it

[clawbaggio]

Lescott looks really awkward on the ball but he's not as bad as some people are making him out to be. He passed it ok and doesn't lose it as much as some.
He was outstanding v Spurs when he came on and the back 4 settled down a bit. We were lucky in the first half that Spurs were so shit as we were all over the place

[MilnersJaw]

You are a fucking prick.

End of.

Re Lescott - he fucked up big time last week and he will fuck up again in the coming weeks.
Funny how both managers prefer Nasty over Lescott isnt it...wonder why that is ?

I know you hate lescott but seriously come on. Lescott names one mistake and you pound on him. Nasti bes shit all game and not a word.

And all you muppets playing the lescott isn't good on the ball crap, give it a rest, its embarrassing. Any defender can pass the ball to the midfield. Nasti doesn't make amazing balls you know.

[aaron bond]

Its not very important to me how many incisive defense splitting passes he makes or how many dribbles he does. His on the ball skills aren't really all that important and people should stop always going on about it, the fact is him and Vinny made the strongest defensive partnership City have probably ever had. I still rate him highly even though I'm somewhat in the minority I guess.

Good post, mate. Not sure about the best ever but still very good and for my money the best combination of the defenders at the club.

Kompany and Lescott have proved in the past they are an effective partnership and complement each other very well. There was never any reason to break up that partnership.

Replacing Lescott with Nastasic was an embarrassing mistake. Fortunately, all those comments last season calling Nastasic 'world class' and a 'future star' have disappeared as it's become obvious to many that he has no real defensive attributes.

Our best centre backs, in my opinion, are Kompany and Lescott. Demichelis is helping out for now, but he's no long-term answer, and Nastasic has shown nothing in the time he's been with us to suggest he's good enough out our level. Boyata has been more impressive in his appearances for us than Nastasic ever has, although I accept his loan spell away from us wasn't the most successful.

I'd be perfectly happy with Kompany, Lescott and an additional top class centre back, with Demichelis/Boyata as support. I hope the club are seriously scouting centre backs now as we definitely need to bring one in, especially with Kompany's injury record.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Some of the comments in this thread are laughable. Nasty is raw but has bags of potential.

I agree with the notion that Lescott/Vinnie was our best defensive pairing and don't get why Mancini froze Joleon out.

Right now it's a flip of a coin who should start on the left side of centre back imo.