Why Manchester City Are Losing Control Of Matches
Manchester City have conceded 10 goals in 4 games. More than they did in their entire treble run-in from March onwards. However, a closer look at the personnel Pep Guardiola has at his disposal might answer the question as to why...
Transcript
00:00 Hello everyone, Adam here again from 442. Now guess what? Guess what happened over on
00:09 the weekend? What? What happened? Manchester City conceded three goals at home. What? Three
00:15 goals at home? That is so rare, that is absolutely unheard of. Yeah, it was to Tottenham. Oh,
00:21 well, that's nothing new. They always concede three at home to Tottenham, every single time,
00:26 without fail. So why are we even making a video? Well, the matter of fact is they've
00:30 actually conceded 10 goals in the last four games, which is simply unheard of. It's irrespective
00:35 of the opposition at this point. When you think about how watertight they were last
00:38 season against Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, keeping clean sheets at home to them, something
00:42 has fundamentally changed. So we're going to delve into what that thing is.
00:47 So to start things off, I want to take you back to the 5th of February, 2023. So still
00:52 this year, but it was a time where Manchester City went to Tottenham and lost, obviously.
00:57 This time they didn't score. It was a classic 1-0 hurricane smash and grab. Familiar story
01:02 at that ground for quite a few seasons now. And this was the line up here. It was a flat
01:06 4-4-2 with Rico Lewis playing in that inverted left-back role. Bernardo Silva and Rodri operating
01:12 in a sort of pivot with Mahrez and Jack Grealish out wide and Alvarez and Haaland up top. So
01:17 not the familiar shape that we became accustomed to towards the tail end of last season with
01:22 that sort of John Stones inverted role. Ake as the left back, Grealish and Bernardo out
01:28 wide, Haaland as the lone striker up top. It doesn't look like that team whatsoever.
01:33 The thing to note in this game, though, you can see from the stats, say Manchester City
01:36 still retain most of the ball and seemingly had a lot of control on the game. And despite
01:41 the fact that they won 1-0, what that would signify is that they didn't really get sucked
01:45 into the affair. There was only one goal in the game. It wasn't the kind of basketball
01:49 matches that we've been seeing in the last couple of weeks over at the Etihad where it's
01:52 just 3-3, 4-4, 3-2 in the Champions League. Like this is unheard of. So even when City
01:59 lost this game, it was a game that was lost by a fine margin. And for the most part, City
02:03 sort of nullified the affair away from home, which is something that they're seemingly
02:07 unable to do right now.
02:09 So what has happened to change all of this? Well, Ilkay Gundogan has left the club. That's
02:14 quite a glaring one. Don't need to overanalyse that. He was a source of goals, but also fundamentally,
02:18 if you go back to his Borussia Dortmund days, was a six by trade in that Jurgen Klopp system
02:24 and sort of developed into a more box-to-box midfielder as the years went on. Now, City
02:28 replaced Gundogan with Matteo Kovacic, who is, of course, incredibly adept on the ball,
02:32 very tidy, retains possession well, but don't quite have that goal-scoring prowess that
02:36 Gundogan did. So goals have been lost in the midfield. Whereas Ilkay Gundogan was Pep
02:40 Guardiola's first signing. So a player who'd been there for six years and knew how to operate
02:44 in that Pep Guardiola system to a team was very adaptable. City have lost out on that.
02:49 And of course, goes without saying, but Kevin De Bruyne, the other eight in that system
02:53 alongside Ilkay Gundogan has been injured for the duration of the season. So City fans
02:57 have also been missing him and Pep's had to find a different solution. So who have
03:01 the new eights been? Well, Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden have predominantly been taking
03:06 up the eight roles in the new Lux City system with Alvarez, of course, being a converted
03:10 striker who was a goal-scoring threat predominantly last season. Now having to defensively contribute
03:15 a lot more, be a lot more press resistant and collectively press from the front in that
03:19 sort of diamond in midfield, that's going to be with Rodri and Phil. They've all tried
03:24 to collectively press and it hasn't quite worked as well. The goals have come from a
03:28 very different way this season. And we're going to talk about that later, but Alvarez
03:32 predominantly is a striker by trade. Phil Foden as well. Well, we've seen him playing
03:37 Pep Guardiola's system predominantly from the right wing and left wing in seasons gone
03:41 by and he's now coming to what some fans would argue is his more natural eight position in
03:46 the middle because he's so good on the turn and he can drive forward and sort of have
03:49 that nimble dexterity that gets him into the box and can create chances out of nothing.
03:54 That's all well and good, but defensively, again, the contributions haven't been there
03:59 to the same level that Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne were supplying, which meant
04:03 particularly in the Tottenham game on the weekend that Bernardo Silva had to come into
04:06 that eight role and Phil Foden was back on his favoured right wing, which caused a few
04:11 more problems because Phil Foden isn't the best at defensively contributing from the
04:15 right hand side either. That's more of Bernardo's speciality, but Bernardo's obviously had to
04:19 come in there to try and give the midfield some more bite and has ended up dropping back
04:23 to a pivot position. I think a really perfect way to paint the picture of what is so wrong
04:27 in Manchester City's middle of the park at the moment is to look at Giovanni Lo Celso's
04:31 equaliser yesterday because it is just something you would not have seen in a Man City team
04:37 last season. So we'll go through it now.
04:40 So as you can see here, Alvarez sort of playing off Haaland as a second striker goes to flip
04:44 the ball on up towards him around the halfway line. Haaland then loses this aerial duel
04:49 to Ben Davies and this header from Ben Davies goes route one all the way up to the pitch
04:54 into the feet of Hyunmin Son on the edge of the D. So one defensive header from Ben Davies
04:58 has bypassed Manchester City's entire midfield. And then that leaves Son and Lo Celso in a
05:03 2v2 on the D against Rodri and Diaz with a Kanji sort of dragged out wide to the right.
05:09 And the duo get the better of Rodri and Diaz and it is a fantastic finish, but that is
05:13 a chance that has just been so easily created with a route one header right through the
05:17 heart of Manchester City's midfield and onto Rodri's doorstep, but not where Rodri likes
05:22 to receive the ball, which is sort of on the edge of the D in the middle of the pitch,
05:26 the centre circle. It's actually his own defensive third, which is just something that did not
05:31 exist last season categorically.
05:34 Another real problem with this new look Manchester City side is that perhaps for the right reasons
05:38 as well, I think a lot of City fans would argue, but Jeremy Doku is now firmly in favour
05:44 of Jack Grealish in that team. He's more proficient going forward. He's more exciting. He's better
05:49 at beating defenders going 1v1 against them and he's more of a adept goal scorer as well.
05:54 I think we've seen that as well. That's fair to say. Grealish's strong suit isn't goal
05:58 scoring. However, the problem lies here because now Grealish, Mr. Ball retention himself actually
06:03 does have some strings to his bow in that department that are valuable to the team because
06:06 of that defensive cover that he gave to Nathan Ake last season in games like against Bayern
06:10 Munich and Real Madrid. It really, it's not something that can be overlooked. It really
06:15 took the sting out of games the similar way that sort of, I don't know, David Silva used
06:19 to do it when he was in the PEC Guardiola systems and before then because of how good
06:23 a player he was, but he just used to have the ability to almost freeze time, stop on
06:26 the ball and slow everything down. And that's kind of what Grealish brought to the side
06:29 last year. But City are sort of missing that, just that, I don't know if maturity is the
06:34 right word, but just that composure and ability to just slow things down a bit at the moment
06:38 because everything's just a hundred miles an hour with Doku.
06:40 And then of course, combined with this, City of course signed Josco Guardiola in the summer
06:44 who has to be integrated into the side because of how touted he is and how young he is and
06:49 how obviously good he is. But this has been a slow teething period and Ake hasn't really
06:54 been a mainstay in the side as much anymore. And he was absolutely flawless last season.
06:58 And it really goes under the radar how many times that Ake manages to lock down really,
07:03 really world-class and just very, very generally good right wingers like Bakao Saka, Mohamed
07:07 Salah and also I would say Dejan Kulishevski. I think Ake probably should have been against
07:12 Dejan Kulishevski one-on-one yesterday because he's no mug either.
07:16 Now my next point is going to be two points joined into one. So just stay with me. But
07:19 the first player to talk about is Bernardo Silva, who of course has played the majority
07:23 of his Manchester City career on that right-hand side. I think this time round he's having
07:27 to play in this eight alongside either Alvarez or Foden or sometimes from the right-hand
07:31 side have to drop into the pivot and supplement Rodri because a Kanji can't quite do the job
07:37 required to supplement Rodri that John Stones can. And that's because John Stones is injured.
07:42 So we saw this at Stamford Bridge two weeks ago. Bernardo is getting on the ball from
07:46 deep line positions an awful lot at Stamford Bridge to try and take the sting out of the
07:49 game, but he couldn't really do it on his own. What you then of course lose with Bernardo
07:53 having the ball so often in this pivot position alongside Rodri is a lot of his attacking
07:58 capabilities. You know, we saw him score two goals against Real Madrid for City in the
08:01 Champions League semi-final last season, playing from that right-hand side and sort of ghosting
08:05 him behind. He has got goals through his game, Bernardo, and he has got creative capabilities,
08:10 but when he's being dragged this far in the pitch, it sort of, it nullifies him to an
08:14 extent, although he is a Swiss Army knife and can play anywhere. You're losing a lot
08:18 going forward by dragging Bernardo into this sixth position alongside Rodri. And it's creating
08:22 this sort of domino effect of attacking redundancy throughout the team, because if you take Bernardo
08:29 out of that attack, it slightly nullifies Foden a bit, or at least puts more individual
08:34 burden on Foden to do something magical to create a goal. The same with Docu as well.
08:38 This brings me to the biggest problem, really, which is the simple fact that Jon Stones is
08:42 not in the team, which completely negates Pep's ability to play the system that he
08:46 wants. He's having to put Akanji from that right-centre back role into that pivot. And
08:51 look, Akanji is a decent player. He's a decent centre-half, but he cannot play that role.
08:57 It's like watching a baby gazelle try and learn to play football in anti-gravity or
09:04 something. His limbs just don't move at the same pace that Jon Stones' do. His positional
09:08 awareness isn't the same, the knowledge of his surroundings and where to turn, how
09:12 to receive the ball on the turn. It's just not there. His forward-thinking passing isn't
09:16 the same, and this just is going to bleed right through the team, and it's why Bernardo's
09:20 having to be dragged back into that pivot as well.
09:23 Another thing to compare is the goals City were scoring last season predominantly and
09:26 the goals they're scoring this season predominantly. Now, last season, the watchword was really
09:30 patience with City. It was death by a thousand cuts. They'd keep the ball, spread it across
09:35 from right to left, Gondouan, De Bruyne, finding those little pockets and waiting for the opportune
09:39 moment to slide someone like Bernardo Silva in, for instance, against Real Madrid at home.
09:43 That was a really good example. But there were several more instances as well.
09:47 What City used to do last season was waiting for a full-back to over-commit and then committing
09:50 that switch and usually playing it across goal for a finish. City saw two of these examples
09:55 at home to Liverpool last season, where those switches happened and then a cut across the
09:58 box. It was very mechanical and methodical, and the goals seem to repeat themselves like
10:05 carbon copies. It's not the same this season.
10:07 City are really having to rely on pressing flurries from these raw, young, fast players
10:11 that they've got at their disposal this season. So the likes of Alvarez, Foden, Doku, Haaland,
10:15 they're really waiting for the opportune moment to capitalise on an opposition defensive error
10:20 and smother them with enough time to create a little bit of their own overload in their
10:23 final third and then score a goal.
10:25 We saw three examples of this the other day against Tottenham. One where Haaland missed
10:29 an open net because Bernardo Silva had dispossessed Tottenham. One where Doku had and then was
10:36 unlucky to hit the joint and the post. And then one in which City scored from, where
10:40 Rodri again capitalised on a Ben Davies error in Tottenham's final third, and that one
10:45 Grealish did pounce to score.
10:46 These goals are really coming from pressing high up, utilising the pace. But the problem
10:51 with that is you're exerting a lot of energy and it's something that, especially if you're
10:55 having to play the same four players every single week in those attacking positions,
10:59 it's going to wear the players thin. So City really do need some bodies back. If they're
11:03 to A) change the system and make it more structured and regain some control and stop these basketball
11:08 games, but B) just to avoid burnout, because we've seen it, to be fair, we saw it with
11:12 De Bruyne earlier on this season. He's just played too many games. And playing this way,
11:17 pressing this high, it kind of is reminiscent of what Jurgen Klopp used to do with his Liverpool
11:21 teams. But of course he had the midfielders to go alongside it, the likes of Wijnaldum
11:25 and Henderson back then. And City just having to move Bernardo Silva away from his favoured
11:29 right-hand position into that middle of the park just to kind of make it work in a way.
11:34 Last season, Pep had put every square peg in a square hole and every round peg in a
11:38 round hole and it fit like a glove. Whereas now it's had a domino effect where he's just
11:43 can't put the right shapes in the right hole to make things work and no real player. They
11:49 know what they're doing, but they're not necessarily capable of being able to do it, particularly
11:53 at Kanji. And then this is having a knock on effects throughout the squad.
11:56 Anyway, you can let me know what you think the biggest problem is at Manchester City
12:03 at the moment and what you think could be addressed first and foremost to start making
12:07 them ticking again, I guess. I mean, the media are going to sensationalise what's happened
12:11 in the last three games with the three draws saying City have been found out and they have
12:15 a little bit at the moment, but that's kind of been forced by the absentees. And once
12:19 Pep gets his players back, I'm sure he's just going to find a solution. The machine that
12:24 had so many working cogs in it last season has a few cogs clearly missing at the moment.
12:27 So you can let me know what you think needs to be addressed first and foremost in terms
12:31 of switching and changing personnel in that team. Anyway, yes, do not forget to subscribe.
12:37 I'll be back very, very soon. There's some midweek Premier League games this week, isn't
12:42 there? City are away at Villa. We've got Doku out, Grealish out, Rodri out, De Bruyne are
12:48 out, Stones is back, but it's not looking good for that one either. So maybe, maybe
12:52 on Friday I'll do my Manchester City are in crisis video and you can all tuck in and enjoy
12:56 that one. But for now, I won't be, but I'll be back very soon. Hope you've had a lovely
13:00 day. I've been Adam Monk. Take care. Goodbye.