Your Manchester City Way Too Early MVP Nominees

As the season is only four months young, I feel I should jump the gun and give my way too early MVP candidates in this campaign: Fernandinho and Bacary Sagna. I don’t think I’m surprising anyone one with either selection, as both of them have incredible starts to this season after some poor performances last year.

First I’ll start with Fernandinho. We know how tough it is to come off a World Cup summer, but given the level of disappointment Fernandinho faced in that World Cup you could be a bit sympathetic to his mental state. As a constant selection during the tournament, Fernandinho played a key role in the hosts World Cup, as well as the catastrophe in the semi-final game against Germany.

As a fan favorite Fernandinho will always be loved and this season his performances have only heightened that love. His style of play chratacterized by strong tackles, tiredless work rate and that infectious smile, allows Yaya the freedom to bomb forward as he does so frequently. Fernandinho has been highly rated by most pundits this season and deservedly so. Let’s hope he continues this play all season.

Bacary Sagna, a player I always enjoyed watching has been extremely valuable to City this season. It’s not only his veteran presence, it’s his ability to play both full-back positions as we saw against Bournemouth last month. With injuries plaguing Zabaleta, Sagna has been forced to play a lot at right back and he has done that incredibly well. Sagna is a very good player but following a season where struggled to get games because of injuries and not being able to unseat Zabaleta because, well, he’s Pablo Zabaleta, you could see him struggle at the start of this campaign due to rust. Fortunately for him, and City, he has shown strongly in the early stages of the season and looks the player he was for Arsenal. I’m not saying I expected him to play poorly since coming over, quite the opposite, I knew his ability and expected him to perform, as he has this season, just not as frequently.

It is only the third month of the season, so by May I could denounce my love for both (kidding, that’ll never happen). Without the strong defensive efforts by both these players City’s consecutive clean sheet record may not have been broken. I know that other players have played a very important role to City’s performance this season, but these two are my two candidates for the (way too early) team MVP. And as the City website noted, stats don’t lie.

Honorable mention: After his struggles in the first two games in the sky blue, Nicholas Otamendi has impressed me substantially. His reading of the game is fantastic and being paired along side another physical center back, Kompany, has only made City’s defense that much stronger.

Who are your way early candidates for team MVP?