man city played chelsea in the final of the ucl . before i write about the game i would like the viewers to read the earlier post about man city's games .
i had been reading a lot of news about gaurdiola over thinking and touchel staying simple . to be honest why is always thought that gaurdiola does the thinking . let me tell you a simple story before i write about the game . there was a great painter and the paintings that he would do had a lot of great meaning in them . people would scratch their heads trying to extract the meaning out of the painting that he would do . one day he did something which had no meaning just plain simple but the people kept on scratching their heads trying to find meaning in the piece that he had painted . similar is with gaurdiola i wont say that the team was without any thought but if it is not able to carry out the plan and the coach is not able to make adjustments then i think he hasnt thought through . the changes should had been made earlier . he could see that the plan wasnt working but he kept on having faith in the plan . the best way to describe the game is that chelsea played like a team while man city played like a disjointed unit where on not all the pieces were not in cohesion with each other . the lack of cohesion is evident when you spend time on the ball .
before talking about the game lets talk about the player selection . gaurdiola selected sterling and mahrez in the wide positions . the idea was that they would run on the defense and would cause chaos in the ranks and players like de bruyne and foden and take advantage of that . but touchel was prepared for that . i dont know whether he prepared the team sheets after seeing man city's team sheet because he played james who is quite good runner and can match sterling in stride was selected . similarly chilwell was man marking mahrez . the instructions were very clear that they should not give sterling and mahrez time and space on the ball cause if they do that then they can cause a lot of problems .
chelsea started the game with 5-3-2 formation while city started with 4-3-3 formation .instead of rodri or fernandiniho gundogan was selected to play in front of the back four . the game started with the familiar pattern because both the teams play opposite kind of football . while chelsea are set up for counter attack city play possession football ( it is said that way). city had sterling and mahrez in the wide positions with foden in the middle . although chelsea were playing were playing on the counter attack they were not defending deep . they played a relative high line and he had a good thinking about that . even if city were able to open chelsea they had an extra player who could cover for them . playing high means that city would have to cover that extra 10 to 20 yards to the goal to have a good shot in that a defender can do something plus there is the goalkeeper . playing deeper means that you are allowing them to have a direct shot at the goal . touchel had thought that instead of having a deeper line lets play a high line and its benefit was seen when sterling was released on the goal by a long ball by ederson . james who was guarding sterling could make amends because sterling had to dribble the ball a further 10,20 yards and he could come back and make an interception .
chelsea were playing a game with a good plan in mind . they were determined not to give sterling and mahrez any time and space ont the ball . secondly they played a very compact game . there was a very little space between the lines . whenever the ball in the midfield they would go on to press the ball . they read the city game very good and were able to stop city's attack most of the times . now chelsea were playing on the counter attacks . there were two thing that were noticeable in the first half . werner was told to run in the space which was left by the fullback who was coming forward to join the attack . his finishing was poor but he kept the ball very well . now whenver city lost the ball they would press and chelsea knew that so they moved the ball very well . but in this one thing was very visible first off rudigers passing from the ball . rudiger played some very good 40-50 yards pass from back to the front . his passing range was the reason that chelsea were able to create so many chances . the second thing that was very much noticable was that the second balls that were won by chelsea . chelsea would pass the ball from back to the front but the man city centre backs would win the headers but chelsea would win the ball back and thus the counter was on . most importantly chelsea played as a team and they had ngolo kante who was just superb .
city's defense was just hopeless in the first half especially zinchenko who just wasnt able to read the game . the ball was on the left flank so zinchenko should had just congested the back line . he should had read the game better and stones should had given him the ball about the danger that would arise if he is caught sleeping . he should had seen that havertz was getting direct run to goal and had zinchenko then he wouldnt had been caught on the wrong side of the ball . had zinchenko been inside and havertz had been outside then the ball reaching him would had taken that much more time . he would be much more wider to the goal with an acute angle shot at goal. city were sixes and sevens when defending they just couldnt decide as to whether they should mark zones or go for man to man marking and they were getting stretched all over the field and chelsea was taking good advantage of that .
now city's plan with the ball was to stretch the offense with sterling and maharez and the spaces would be exploited by de bruyne,foden and silva but if you had read the earlier post then you might seen the shortcomings in gaurdiola's plan . he doesnt have a proper no.9 around whom his team would play . secondly all the players that i mentioned are no.10's they all like to come deep and then advance with the play . the trouble is that none of them didnt want to run beyond the back line . i really dont know as to why gaurdiola is so much adamant with his plan or whether can he really see the game . there are space behind the back five to explore but not a single pass was played in that direction . both sterling and mahrez were pretty tightly gaurded . i think that garudiola was more dependent on sterling who is just one dimensional and even gaurdiola . sterling just likes to go one way and it was easy for the defender to read that and defend him . this is stupid by sterling he needs to mix things up and keep the defender guessing .he should had moved inside if he doesnt sees the space on the outside . i was wondering as to why even gaurdiola didnt asked him to do that . to be honest i think i would give credit to chelsea's good defending who closed down very well and denied man city too much space for city's players .
city's best chance came when sterling instead of trying to run passed the ball inside to de bruyne who foxed azipilicueta ( a rare thing)to set up a cross foden who was through on goal . what i find here is interesting . both foden and werner just couldnt sort there feet and scuffed their shots .they should had realized that the ball was going to come to them and should had prepared for that . they should positioned so that they should be ready to take shot without taking an extra touch .
in the second half gaurdiola realized that his plan wasnt working so be bought fernandiniho who can read the play better and stop the counter in the tracks . secondly he asked his fullbacks to be more conservative but still there wasnt a proper no.9 who would be there in the box . he bought aguero but he likes to run bith the ball rather than be in the box to be at the end of the cross . to be honest in the second half gaurdiola's was out of sorts and didnt had a proper plan to open up the chelsea defense . in the second half chelsea had even dropped deeper because they knew that the energy levels that are in the first half arent there in the second half so they started to play deeper . except for one or two good crosses city couldnt muster anything significant .
last but not the least man utd had become a medicore club its managed by a manager who has a medicore mentality . if utd are to challenge for the title then they need to change the manager and bring somebody who has fire in the belly and sell some of the worst players in the team like pogba,martial ,mctomminay and many others who are just hopeless . big names but lack the hunger for win.
