man city played tottenham in the ucl q/f at the etihad and the game was quite entertaining . the way gaurdiola sets ups his teams has got quite a bit of meaning to it . the player he used and the movement of these players the zones they occupy the runs they make the way the offense starts and how he wants his teams wants to execute it . man city started the game with the 4-3-3 formation while spurs started the game with 4-2-3-1 formation . the way gaurdila set up his team was most fascinating and i will try to explain why .
in the man city formation sterling and b.silva start as the wide players but both play inverted . while d.silva and de bruyne play alongside fernandiniho or gundogan in the midfield . now the attack starts from the wide with b.silva or sterling starting the offense and they stay out wide . their starting position is wide left and right . both are inverted players so both try to cut inside ( shown in the figuer .) now this leaves space behing the back four to explore or that the ball can be taken further forward and crossed into box which can be much more threatning . so here comes the two midfielders who bomb beyond the wide players and both these are correct foot players ( lefty on left and righty on right ). even when they cross the ball they have a perfect plan for that . aguero who plays as no.9 doesnt tries to occupy the space between the centre back but he there and there about so that they cant just ignore him . because he stays inside the centre backs too have to keep an eye on him because if left unguarded can be cause trouble so the centre backs are pulled towards him which leaves the space between them and the goal keeper from which the ball is crossed and player on the opposite flank can get to the end of it .
the game started with man city being the offensive team and spurs sitting back and hitting man city on the counter attack . trippier was always going to be in the trouble with sterling in the foot race and he decided to be patient than hasty when defending sterling and it is the right thing to do because sterling is too fast for tripper . but the one thing that trippier did wrong was that he allowed sterling cut inside and allowed him time and space on the ball in the 18 yard box . spurs equalised very soon because man city's defense were bit hesistant of the spurs counter offense and instead of trying to stop in the tracks they just kept on dropping back and allowed sun time and space on the ball which allowed him to pick up the pass and then play good interplay to score . the second too was one of the mistakes by the one of the man city defenders which allowed spurs to counter and score .
the way spurs were set up was that wanyama and sissoko were in front of the back four while alli,eriksen and moura made the three behind son . sissoko especially played on sterling side because he can protect trippier if sterling tries to come inside and give him cover . but the trouble with spurs was that they were especially in front of the back four and mostly de bruyne could find that space in between midfield and back four and spurs would be in trouble . the same can be said about man city because on the counter there midfielders would be scampering back since spurs will be bringing the ball from back to front with pace and most importantly they only had gundogan to guard that space . the first 15 min were all chaos because gaurdiola's side's made mistakes which shouldnt had been made by his team . in the first half man city controlled the tempo and the game slowed down a bit after first 20 min . the half ended any more drama .
i think gaurdiola must had asked his team to up the tempo on the second half because with upped tempo the opposition can make mistakes and the team can capitalise on the them the third goal is the perfect example of the gaurdiola's tactic's and spurs at that time just didnt had any answer to man city's tempo . they were lucky to have that third goal . the most important thing was that i didnt find any novelty from gaurdiola in the last 15 minutes . he did change players but thats that there was no change in shape and tactics which were the same .
in the man city formation sterling and b.silva start as the wide players but both play inverted . while d.silva and de bruyne play alongside fernandiniho or gundogan in the midfield . now the attack starts from the wide with b.silva or sterling starting the offense and they stay out wide . their starting position is wide left and right . both are inverted players so both try to cut inside ( shown in the figuer .) now this leaves space behing the back four to explore or that the ball can be taken further forward and crossed into box which can be much more threatning . so here comes the two midfielders who bomb beyond the wide players and both these are correct foot players ( lefty on left and righty on right ). even when they cross the ball they have a perfect plan for that . aguero who plays as no.9 doesnt tries to occupy the space between the centre back but he there and there about so that they cant just ignore him . because he stays inside the centre backs too have to keep an eye on him because if left unguarded can be cause trouble so the centre backs are pulled towards him which leaves the space between them and the goal keeper from which the ball is crossed and player on the opposite flank can get to the end of it .
the game started with man city being the offensive team and spurs sitting back and hitting man city on the counter attack . trippier was always going to be in the trouble with sterling in the foot race and he decided to be patient than hasty when defending sterling and it is the right thing to do because sterling is too fast for tripper . but the one thing that trippier did wrong was that he allowed sterling cut inside and allowed him time and space on the ball in the 18 yard box . spurs equalised very soon because man city's defense were bit hesistant of the spurs counter offense and instead of trying to stop in the tracks they just kept on dropping back and allowed sun time and space on the ball which allowed him to pick up the pass and then play good interplay to score . the second too was one of the mistakes by the one of the man city defenders which allowed spurs to counter and score .
the way spurs were set up was that wanyama and sissoko were in front of the back four while alli,eriksen and moura made the three behind son . sissoko especially played on sterling side because he can protect trippier if sterling tries to come inside and give him cover . but the trouble with spurs was that they were especially in front of the back four and mostly de bruyne could find that space in between midfield and back four and spurs would be in trouble . the same can be said about man city because on the counter there midfielders would be scampering back since spurs will be bringing the ball from back to front with pace and most importantly they only had gundogan to guard that space . the first 15 min were all chaos because gaurdiola's side's made mistakes which shouldnt had been made by his team . in the first half man city controlled the tempo and the game slowed down a bit after first 20 min . the half ended any more drama .
i think gaurdiola must had asked his team to up the tempo on the second half because with upped tempo the opposition can make mistakes and the team can capitalise on the them the third goal is the perfect example of the gaurdiola's tactic's and spurs at that time just didnt had any answer to man city's tempo . they were lucky to have that third goal . the most important thing was that i didnt find any novelty from gaurdiola in the last 15 minutes . he did change players but thats that there was no change in shape and tactics which were the same .
