Manchester City vs Tottenham
My thoughts on the change in system.
My thoughts on the change in system.
In the game vs Spurs, Pep decided to change the attacking formation. Instead of the 3-2-5 Pep decided to go for a 3-3-4 shown below.
The compact midfield 3 led to overloads in central areas. Many times it was Rodri, Lewis and Bernardo against Spurs’ double pivot (3v2). This meant City could keep the ball and find the free man with ease. We saw many of these combinations.
Another advantage of a compact midfield 3 is it drew defenders into unusual positions. Sometimes Dier would step out to make it 3v3. This led to isolations for City’s forwards. It would also drag defenders central leaving passing lanes in the half space open.
This is where Haaland and Alvarez come in. Both often dropped deeper into the half spaces to support and help City progress further up the field.
City’s 3 center backs could either directly find Alvarez and Haaland or by using combinations they could create passing angles to them.
That was a brief summary on the system used. But what where some of the weaknesses that ultimately led to a lackluster performance?
When the wingers revived the ball wide, there was not enough support in the half space. As opposed to Gundogan, De Bruyne and Bernardo in the half spaces both Haaland and Alvarez where used. These players want to get into the box and score goals.
There was never anyone running through the half space for cut backs or to draw defenders away from the winger on the ball.
Another issue was only having 4 forwards. This meant City didn’t have an overload on the back line. Having 1 less forward led to a lack of threat in the final 3rd. Instead of a 5v5 or 6v5, City where outnumbered 4v5.
Overall thoughts:
I think Pep was trying to test out this formation to play against Arsenal. This system is all about controlling possession and having a solid rest defense. Ake, Akanji and Walker are all transition killers but they are not as good with the ball as the other…
I think Pep was trying to test out this formation to play against Arsenal. This system is all about controlling possession and having a solid rest defense. Ake, Akanji and Walker are all transition killers but they are not as good with the ball as the other…
City center backs. Using this set up against Arsenal is a good idea because it will be harder to control the opponent with the ball and they use 4 defenders. However we should not have used it against Spurs because we would have controlled the game no matter the set up.
It would have been more beneficial to have 5 or 6 attackers to overload Tottenhams defensive line instead of going all out for control.
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