Toure must beat the big boys to gain redemption
ALONGSIDE Patrick Vieira, Ya y a To ur e is the best foreign central midfielder I’ve ever seen in the Premier League.
He was the driving force behind Manchester City’s two league titles, the man who scored the winning goal in an FA Cup Final and a truly monumental player.
At West Brom on Monday night he looked close to his marauding best again, driving from midfield and scoring with fantastic precision from just outside the box.
But let’s not be fooled into thinking one performance against a likely mid-table team suddenly means that all his problems are behind him.
Last season, Toure also put in performances like that — no central midfielder scored more than his 10 league goals — but he was poor in the big matches. Now he has to show he can play like that for the majority of the season, starting with Chelsea tomorrow.
To o often against the big teams he did not contribute enough. None of his goals came against t op- s i x sides and his only Champions League strike — against CSKA Moscow — was followed by a red card. Contrast that to his crucial goals in other seasons: three in Manchester derbies and others against Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham.
Last season, he was a pale imitation. So many times he burst forward but didn’t put in the effort going the other way.
Against Burnley, Manuel Pellegrini substituted him with City chasing an equaliser. That would have been totally unthinkable in previous seasons. Yes, he had a long season with the World Cup and African Cup of Nations but it looked as if he was finding energy to go one way but not the other.
City’s hierarchy were clearly unhappy and would have let him go had they received the right offer or lured Paul Pogba from Juventus. So to hear Toure saying after Monday’s game: ‘I’m not back, I was always there’, makes no sense. Clearly, he wasn’t.
If he gives all defensive duties to Fernandinho against Chelsea tomorrow, he and his team will likely be punished.
Chelsea’s midfielders cover so much ground and Toure will need to help protect the area in front of the back four where Eden Hazard, Willian and Cesc Fabregas operate.
I bumped into Kolo Toure at Liverpool’s academy recently and he has clearly played a part in changing his brother’s attitude. He told him to stay at City because he is a legend there and to leave after the poor season he had would taint his legacy.
Kolo was also convinced Yaya would have a great season after a summer of rest.
Turning things around can be done. Wayne Rooney has had seasons where his form has dipped and then came storming back the next; John Terry became part of squad rotation under Rafa Benitez but was one of the players of the year last season. One of t he greatest s i ghts i n Premier League history has been Toure (left) charging through midfield. He’s been totally unplayable and made it look like men against boys.
On form, he’s still a type of player that City have and Chelsea don’t. At his best, he could get in Mourinho’s side as the powerhouse who can score the goals that Frank Lampard used to.
Toure is 32 but that’s not old nowadays and he can still be a box-to-box midfielder.
But, in the coming years, he might want to take the route Roy Keane and Steven Gerrard did and find a deeper role. They had to reinvent their games to conserve more energy but were still hugely influential. That will depend on whether he has t he discipline or will to do the job.
After the first weekend, City were the most impressive team — albeit I still fancy Chelsea for the title and Arsenal to be their closest challengers.
However, it will certainly be interesting to see if the momentum starts to shift if City win tomorrow, putting them five points ahead of Mourinho’s men after just two games. Likewise, al most nobody expected Arsenal to lose to West Ham.
If City are to regain their crown, they need the Toure of 2012 and 2014 in their ranks.