- 5/29/2025
Despite a rotten run in the winter and an injury to Erling Haaland, Manchester City's 2-1 victory over Aston Villa has them back in 3rd place in the Premier League. With Champions League qualification looking a certainty, Adam Clery looks at what was going wrong for them, and how Guardiola has completely reinvented the team since.
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00:00Hello everybody, Adam Cleary, ACFC here for you. Big news, we're going to get some of these made
00:06up and even bigger news, Manchester City, they're back. It looked like they were on for an all-time
00:11stinker of a season but after this last second winner against Aston Villa, they're now third
00:16which is probably where they're going to finish and that's absolutely fine. So the question is,
00:22how then did Pep Guardiola turn a crisis into an opportunity? Or as the Chinese would say,
00:28a Christ-a-tunity. That was awful, I'm really sorry.
00:37Okay, so I'm going to start with two graphs here that will make limited sense at this stage but
00:43just they're important for later so bear with me now, right? This is Manchester City's entire
00:47defensive output from the 2-1 defeat away to Brighton earlier in the season. Now ignore the
00:53fact the numbers are the wrong way around, it's an optograph so it's reversed when it's home or away
00:57so I've had to flip it around so it makes sense. Just forget that for a second, right? This is every
01:02tackle, interception, ball recovery, clearance, everything they did defensively in that game.
01:08Now they looked absolutely awful in this match and they won something like 38 or 40% of all their
01:14tackles. This is not good. But this are those exact same stats, those exact same contributions,
01:21the tackles, interceptions, clearances, recoveries, everything from last night, depending on when you're
01:25watching this, against Aston Villa. A game in which they won 73% of their tackles. This
01:32is very good. Like even if you just compare the centre of the pitch in these two graphs, you can
01:37see they're competing far better, they're not getting bullied. So the question in this video
01:41is how and why did Pep Guardiola turn this, which is meek and cowardly and anemic, into this,
01:49which is burly and aggressive and what are you looking at pal, etc.
01:53Well, their problems were both structural and physical, right? So to show you the structural
01:57side, i.e. the tactics, the shape, the formation, what they're supposed to be doing, let's go back
02:02to that Brighton game in November and I'll ask you this question, right? What's wrong with this picture?
02:10What's wrong is that Man City have committed all 10 outfield players to defending an area occupied
02:16by only four members of the opposition. They're not deep, which means they've left this space in
02:22behind to attack. They're really narrow, so both the flanks have players totally free
02:26to receive a pass and there is zero pressure on the man in possession. This is about as bad a setup
02:34as you can see in the Premier League. Like if you want to sit off here, you need to be on the edge
02:39of the box here and if you want to be pushed up like this, then you have to press the ball and
02:44somehow none of this is happening. And worst of all, right, Guardiola is just stood there looking at it.
02:50He's got a great view of all of this, but he's just completely unable to fix it with the tools he had
02:55at his disposal. One pass later, it's into the wide area because that's totally free and Brighton get a
03:00runner into the space behind because that's totally free and in the ensuing scramble, four or five
03:06separate players get physically bullied into conceding this goal. Minutes later, they do the exact same
03:13thing. They defend in this weird compact block of corned beef, not pressing the ball, which one pass
03:20into this. Like, dear God, just take your pick of how you want to concede the goal here. Like a run
03:26straight through the middle, one of these two getting into the gaping chasms on the outside.
03:31Obviously, they lose this game. But the thing is, as well as all these structural problems,
03:35they also had fairly major physical problems as well. Like the Premier League has massively ramped up
03:41its own intensity in recent years and Villa, Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle, Brentford,
03:46all sides currently enjoying very good seasons and all sides that are massively ramped up how hard
03:53they work on and off the ball. Now, of course, how you get a team that is really good both on and off
03:59the ball is incredibly nuanced and complicated and clever, but it does, to a degree, also just boil
04:05down to running. How hard can you run and how much can you do that running when it is hard?
04:13And Tottenham, for all their season has sucked, were four months ago doing loads of running and
04:19City could not live with that at all. In almost every single goal they score, you see some City
04:24player just impotently pointing at a man who has left him in the dust in the hope that someone else
04:31will magically get there. And not to do a cheap plug here, but I did make this exact point in an
04:35article I did on my sub stack at the time, right? When you're playing football, even you at five
04:40sides, when lads just start blowing out their arse and pointing at somebody without saying everybody,
04:45that absolutely boils your piss, right? And here is Ilkay Gundogan doing it three or four separate
04:54times in the Premier League. Like this goal where they're robbed in the final third, lose three or
05:00four consecutive 50-50s, Gundogan again does the please help me point before everyone somehow makes
05:07the wrong decision and leaves this much space for Poirot to score from. That might be the single
05:12worst goal I've ever seen Man City concede. And this game had to be an enormous wake-up call to Pep
05:18because watching it you lost count of how many times a Spurs player was just able to run past a Man City
05:24player, either with the ball or without, entirely unchallenged and entirely un... that's the word I want.
05:30Kept up with, tracked, you know, and just don't get me wrong here, right? I'm not trying to rewrite
05:36history. They were still Manchester City. They made loads of chances in this match. It was insane
05:42that they somehow lost 4-0, but what must surely have occurred to Guardiola watching it was like,
05:48okay, that shouldn't have happened, but it can. And everyone just got wise to it and they had a run of
05:55one league win in nine as Brighton, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Villa, all the big running teams,
06:01remember, just blew them away. And they even, and dear god this feels like a long time ago,
06:06got mullered by Ruben Amarum Sporting, who are fantastic at running, and then also lost to his
06:12Man United side, who are not. But yet, where did the gold in this game come from? A mad pounces on a
06:19loose back pass, so running, and everyone sits off Martinez while they defend in a weirdly corned
06:25beefy high block. So exactly the same as this goal, and exactly the same as this goal. So in January,
06:32that became his job, right? You have to go out and you have to fix this, and he did this
06:36by basically spending money. Omar Mamouche felt like the most un-City player you'd seen them by
06:42in years. The way he drops off, he finds a space, he spins in behind, so he's really good at
06:46stretching teams. And then Nico Gonzalez, who's about as all-action a midfielder as Pep's ever
06:51likely to buy. He makes them way more high energy off the ball, and then much better as a result
06:56at defending counterattacks. But arguably, more important than those two signings though,
07:00and I think Guardiola deserves a lot of credit for this, is he actually turned around and had a look
07:05at what was sitting on the bench. Nico O'Reilly and James McAtee had a combined two minutes in the
07:10Premier League before the turn of the year, but both have now been involved in the majority of
07:15matches since. And don't get me wrong, neither of them are the finished article by any stretch of
07:20the imagination yet, but crucially, what do they do? They work really hard off the ball and they
07:25really try and get at teams with their movement on it. So again, you're adding more energy, you're
07:31adding more running. Like here's a graph Opta put out a couple of weeks ago that shows you the age
07:36versus minutes for this squad. So much of the time on the pitch in the early part of the season was
07:41being given to players beyond their physical peak. And all of the new arrivals you can see here
07:48are far, far younger. Like it shouldn't be that simple. And obviously, like obviously it isn't,
07:55but also it kind of is. But yes, obviously, as well as just adding more players who can run, Guardiola
08:02also changed the shape of the team and that fixed the problems they were having structurally.
08:08Why does that sound wrong? Over the last couple of seasons, whatever formation Man City was starting
08:17with, the objective was to get five into the attacking line with one of the defenders then
08:24coming in to make sort of a two behind them. So you kind of had this sort of shape. Sometimes
08:28they'd go absolutely mad, they'd get a third player in this sign, then go a two, three, five instead of
08:32a three, two, five. But the objective was always an attacking line of five players. And thus,
08:38what has become sort of the accepted counter to play against this is to sit really deep,
08:42deny them space in behind. And when you do turn the ball over, you've got all this space out wide
08:47on the flanks to try and get round the sides of them. And the change that Guardiola has made to
08:52this this season has actually been really effective and quite clever. So instead of trying to invert
08:56one of the defenders into the centre midfield, both the full backs, which is why Nico Riley comes in
09:01really well and Mateus Nunes, they're both naturally midfielders, they just push up into a four. Instead
09:07of a five in the front line, you again have a four, but you sit them considerably deeper.
09:13And the consequences of this are twofold. First of all, it means you've got actually for once space
09:20in behind to potentially run. And when you've got Mamouche in the front line, when you've got other
09:24players like that, that's nice and exploitable. It also means because all you're doing is pushing
09:28your full backs into another line, but you're actually much better now at defending counter
09:33attacks because you can easily get into that space without getting too stretched across the line.
09:37And if you are sat there thinking, yeah, but surely you're sacrificing a player in the attacking
09:41line. So you're going to be less good at attacking. They're very dynamic with it. Again, the benefits of
09:47O'Reilly and the benefits of Nunes are when the play shuffles over to one side and they drag the back
09:53four across, you leave space for one of them to then make it a five. So you can still get into that
09:59two, three, five as and when you need to, but defaultly you're in a more stable formation.
10:05And also the quality you've got in this front line kind of means it's not that big a deal.
10:09And even their line of midfielders will sit a little bit deeper than you'll expect them to,
10:13creating this gap between them and the forwards with the intention of baiting out the opposition
10:18midfield, can't get him away, to leave the gap for the players to drop into. So it's weirdly like
10:24more conservative on the face of it, but it gives them more sort of explosive opportunities to get
10:30in behind or to play in the space. And defenders haven't known what to do with this at all this
10:34season, by the way, because you've got a front line full of players who are comfortable dropping
10:38off into the space that they can find here or also turning and running in behind. So they've been
10:44pulling this back four or back five as it's been all over the place doing it.
10:48Marmouche is perfect for this. Like this was something that just jumped straight off the
10:53screen to me when I was watching them play Crystal Palace. Like how many times in the last couple of
10:57years have you seen a City player do what Makati is doing here, which is pointing to receive the ball
11:04in behind. Never normally happens because that space is never normally there, but it is in this
11:09game because they've done this and he gets around the back and he puts the ball in and the ensuing chaos,
11:14they get a goal. And admittedly, yes, it is a little bit weird to be trying to explain
11:18this after the Aston Villa game because Aston Villa are probably the team in the Premier League
11:23against whom this would work the least because they are not interested in getting baited out.
11:28Their midfield will not attempt to press you there. They will sit as deep as they like.
11:32And you saw loads of times in this game, them just spectacularly failing to create that space in
11:38behind. And as a result, they kept adding a fifth body in there. So it looked like the old man city,
11:43but you can just, there were a few moments where you could see the vision. Like this is from those
11:48first couple of seconds when Rashford should probably score. When their header is made forward
11:52by Diaz, everybody sort of reacts and tries to get into their attacking shape. And just, there it is.
11:59Those four go forward and everybody else does all of this. So it was there, it was there. It was just
12:06much harder to see. And in fact, in the end, both of their goals did come from getting in behind, but not where there was
12:12any actual space from individual determination to do that from first Mamouche and then later Doku.
12:18Not Kevin De Bruyne, not Ilkay Gundogan, not David Silva, who I did think was absolutely amazing
12:24in that game from Mamouche and Doku. Runners, players who will run. It should not be that simple,
12:31but also it is. And actually, I'll tell you one thing you did see in that Aston Villa game, despite the
12:36whole system not working, the determination to run back off the ball. Like, even the penalty,
12:43which was a bit weird, you will notice that when the ball is turned over, Nunez is this far away
12:49from the Villa player. And when, yes, Diaz does make the foul, he has made up all this distance.
12:56That is grafting. Second half, Watkins comes on, Villa get another really dangerous turnover.
13:00Look at the gaps and the distances that are in this moment. And yet, when they get to the edge
13:06of the box, all of these players have made their way back in. And Nunez again, highlighting him for
13:12a reason, has closed that gap. So yes, that is why you turn this team here, who are getting outfought and
13:20outrun by every single team they play into this team here, who even when the system isn't working,
13:27will still graft and run sufficiently to get you a result, which is a very un-Manchester City
13:34style of play over the last couple of years. And yet, with the signings they've made and the young
13:39players they've brought through, feels very natural for this group of players. Bravo, Pep Guardiola.
13:47I'm sure he doesn't need to come on the internet and watch somebody on YouTube say he's doing a
13:51good job. I presume he's comfortable enough in himself for that. But regardless, here are my
13:57applauses. So yes, there you go, end of the video. Before, just before you go, really quickly, a
14:01reminder, I'm doing the Hackney half for Calm, the campaign against living miserably. I'll stick
14:06the description in the video. They're a suicide prevention charity in the UK, which we need here
14:10because mental health services just do not get the funding they need. So I'm running 22 and a half
14:15kilometres, which is a lot for me because I don't really do a lot of running. And if you'd like
14:20to sponsor, you'd like to make a donation towards that, you can. The link is there. Thank you very
14:23much. Appreciate your time. You get me on all social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y. Please
14:28subscribe to us here on ACFC because we might hit 100,000 subs before the end of the season, which
14:34would be insane. So if you haven't done that yet already, you can click the thing and you can
14:38do that now. But until next time, this is Manchester City. This is the new Manchester
14:44City. New moon. Yeah, I should have thought of that before I came on. Bye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
14:51Mwah. Goodbye.
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