Eliaquim Mangala was a hugely wanted player when he was at FC Porto. Manchester City beat off competition to sign the defender for a fee which, depending on who your believe, was either just over £30m or just over £40m.
That fee hung around the player’s neck and whilst he certainly wasn’t brilliant in his first Manchester City season, he wasn’t as bad as the perception which developed.
A Valencia loan was a good result for Mangala, and he’s been speaking to Marca about the move.
The Spanish newspaper were impressed with Mangala’s language skills, with the Frenchman being fluent in the language of his new country.
Mangala explained: “Portuguese is similar and in the City dressing room, Spanish is spoken more than English (laughs).”
On perceived failure at Manchester City and leaving the club behind, Mangala stuck up for his own record at the club: “City was different, the English championship is different. The team did not work well, but statistics said that more games were won when I played than when not playing.
“The only thing I missed was winning a title. But I also got to play a semifinal of the Champions League.
“I talked with Pep, but there were many players and he told me that he understood that I wanted to play and had no problems.”
Mangala will now team up at Valencia with Ezequiel Garay, leaving the Spanish club with arguably a better defence than they had last season, despite selling Shkodran Mustafi for a huge fee.
