With Manchester City facing a tough-looking game at West Ham this weekend and fresh Champions League trips on the horizon, it is worth explaining how Pep Guardiola often sets up in those matches, why he does so and how it affects the football on show.
It is not out of the question for City to rack up big scores when they go on their travels — indeed, they can do so by playing like this — but already this season they have shown that they are happy to keep the game under control at the expense of trying to create lots of chances. At least initially, anyway.
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Their reasons for doing so can vary. They might be opposition specific, whether they are confronting Real Madrid or Sheffield United, and it would be no surprise to see them adopt such tactics at West Ham this weekend given City are just back from the international break — all with the usual caveat that predicting Guardiola’s tactics is a fool’s errand.
So what do they do? Essentially, they prioritise numbers in midfield over those in attack.
You have probably heard the word ‘overload’ used in tactical circles, especially in relation to how Guardiola’s teams work. Creating overloads is routine for any coach trying to break down the opposition, especially against a deep and compact defence, and there are many ways to achieve it: getting more of your players in a particular area than opposition players (quantitative) or setting up a one-against-one for a dribbler against a full-back (qualitative). Then there are ‘dynamic advantages’ where a runner arrives from deep to get beyond the opposition defence.
Those overloads are key to how City break teams down, and Guardiola works very hard to create these imbalances and pull opposition defenders and midfielders out of position. If the opposition play a back five, for example, Guardiola will try to have six attackers.
Unless he does not want to overload at all — and this is what we often see when City play away from home, at least for some of the game.
Take these examples from the second half of City’s 2-1 victory against Sheffield United last month. Mateo Kovacic has pushed up from midfield to join City’s front five, which is made up of Kyle Walker wide on the right, Bernardo Silva inside, Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez central, and Jack Grealish on the left. It was a consistent pattern of the second half, as seen here…
… and here…
… as well as here…
Sheffield United always had two midfielders (at least) in front of their back five, so they were very difficult to break down. But City changed at half-time to give themselves a better chance of doing so.
With Kovacic now pushing on too, they were prepared to ask more questions of the defence. The Croatian pulled a defender out to mark him when he was sitting in front of the defence, and he also made runs beyond the back line as well (those dynamic advantages), causing more disruption to their defensive unit.
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That in itself is not especially novel for City, but it becomes more interesting when compared to their approach in the first half.
Kovacic was consistently close to Rodri and, while they were both able to get close to the area due to the home side’s deep position, there was very little appetite from them — or their manager — to join the forward line, let alone run beyond it.
As these examples show, City’s front five matched up against Sheffield United’s back five. With the opposition’s two midfielders in front of the centre-backs and City leaving Kovacic and Rodri deeper, it meant that while Sheffield United’s defence could not say they were comfortable — how could you be comfortable against Haaland et al? — but they were not being stretched either numerically or with runs in behind from deep. Guardiola’s side did not create too many chances.
And with City not pushing any deeper midfielders beyond that defensive line, the home side had everything in front of them.
What City lacked in the final third they made up for in the middle. The attack still had enough quality to probe for openings — they created one good chance and another fine move that led to a penalty — and if those attacks broke down, City had Kovacic and Rodri in advanced positions, and aggressive defenders like Ruben Dias behind them, to win the ball back high up the pitch.
Sheffield United were happy to sit back and City were happy to keep them there, so it did not provide too much entertainment — especially as City were able to cut off the threat of the counter-attack thanks in part to their extra men in the middle.
As a result, City were in control of the game but were not especially threatening — and that was exactly how they wanted it to go.
That is not to say that everything in the game went as planned, but their analysis of the contest would have varied wildly from those who were expecting them to create more chances and attack with more urgency. “The performance was closer to what we wanted than the scoreline suggests,” Guardiola’s assistant, Juanma Lillo, said afterwards.
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This approach also offers the option to push more men forward and create more problems for the opposition if goals are required, adding slightly more risk to their game in search of the goal (or goals) that could win the game.
Sources close to the City coaching staff have confirmed that, for this particular game, Guardiola prioritised control and stability partly because it was early in the season — he had already said that his team were not in the best physical condition following a short pre-season — and because of injuries in the squad making life even harder.
This is not to say things are always going to plan whenever City struggle to create chances, but Guardiola certainly does like to keep things tight in the tougher games, especially on the road.
It is something they have shown in the Champions League in particular.
For years, English teams have gone away to European sides and played for a draw, or to nick a narrow win, by putting men behind the ball and defending for their lives. Guardiola’s approach is often similar — he just does it with the ball rather than without it. And this plays a part in how they do it.
Looking at the semi-final against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in May, it seems clear now that the approach was to sacrifice some attacking threat for stability. The reasons for that would be obvious: keep it tight against an extremely dangerous side, with the second leg still to come at home, and to avoid a repeat of what had happened the season before (when they basically did the same thing but were hit with a sucker punch anyway).
Early in the game, City attacked with a maximum of four players — their front three and one attacking midfielder pushing on while the other stayed back. Against Madrid’s back four, and with Toni Kroos watching Kevin De Bruyne, the home side were relatively comfortable.
Again, City did have numbers in the middle of the pitch, helping them keep the ball and, when required, win it back quickly.
Madrid did score on the break and, in the second half, City committed five men to the attack more often. John Stones pushed up at times, too. But they did not ramp up their attacks to the extent that they lost any stability in the middle — with the second leg in Manchester still to come, there was no reason, in Guardiola’s mind, to push for an equaliser if it risked conceding a second.
Here, Stones has pushed on but Ilkay Gundogan and De Bruyne are withdrawn, and Rodri is behind them (out of shot).
And below, even with five men in the Madrid box, they are still outnumbered and still have two men outside the area for safety.
From the very start of the second leg City really did ramp up the attacking intent: in the second minute they flooded forward with five against Madrid’s four-man defence.
That was something they tried to exploit often, as shown below, with Gundogan running beyond the defence and Haaland dropping deep, trying to move Madrid around. The Madrid midfield has also been bypassed.
City maintained their five-man attack throughout the first half, ensuring at least one Madrid midfielder had to drop back into the back four to even things up. Crucially, they often supported that with an extra runner in behind — usually Stones.
Adding Stones to the equation really gave Madrid problems, especially as one of their midfielders already had to drop back to help the defence. Below is the build-up to City’s first goal, with Stones running in behind to collect Bernardo’s reverse pass.
It did not lead to a chance that time, but City came back and tried again — this time with Stones on the right wing and Bernardo running in behind. The huge gap between David Alaba and Rodrygo, who had ended up at left-back, was exploited because Kroos could not keep up with Bernardo’s movement.
Which goes to show that City have lots of different ways to manipulate and stretch a defence in the search for an opening.
It’s just that they do not always want to.
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(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
