2020/2021 Manchester City: A Cinderella Story

teddykgb

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I've had this thread in my head for a few months now after speaking with some friends about how concerned I am about City and getting a surprised reaction from them. This could have gone in the "How do you feel about your club" thread but this is going to end up being a few thousand words and so I figured I'd make a City thread to properly document either my tremendous clarity as an astute observer of the beautiful game or my completely spineless lack of faith in a tremendous side. I tried to hold off as long as I could because the transfer window could change a lot but the season has started and the warning signs cannot be ignored. This isn't a result of just a bad loss yesterday, more the overall trend of the team and squad.

The gist of it goes like this: I think City are going to be locked in a battle for the CL spots this year and am worried could fall out. I don't believe City will be making a serious title challenge -- that's a complete write off in my head already absent some major movement in the last week of the window.

So how does one of the richest teams in the world managed by one of the best in the world lose its way? To me there are three aspects of this: Recruitment, Tactics, and Preparation

Manchester City have spent an enormous amount of money in the transfer market -- there is no denying this. My gripe with City's recruitment over the entirety of Txiki Begiristan's time is that in spite of the reputation of City as being this evil market manipulator who buys success City have largely been value hunters in the transfer market. City's recruitment early in Sheikh Mansour's ownership provided the backbone of a squad which won many trophies: Silva, Kompany, Aguero, Fernandinho, Kompany, Yaya. Later others like Nasri and Sterling were added to the mix. Some of these players were purchased cheap and developed into stars but City were generally speaking shopping at the top end of the transfer market and buying difference makers at relatively high cost. As Txiki took over, they shifted to buying complementary players and of course De Bruyne. This resulted in a lot of money spent on fullbacks, wingers, centerbacks to cover for Kompany's injuries, etc. But the scouting and negotiation teams generally let City down: Mangala was a disaster at big money, Bony completely failed, Stones was purchased to grow into the CB role and quickly failed, Jesus Navas, Nolito, Javi Garcia, Fernando, etc. Probably just as bad is the list of targets City identified and then got outbid on who also all turned out to be mediocre or outright failures: Jorginho, Fred, Alexis, Maguire, Bonucci just off the top of my head. Where City have spent, the pattern of not exactly hitting homeruns has continued: Rodri looks like another failure, Mendy is already another failure, Mahrez has had OK stats but has added nothing to the team with the added bonus of (along with pursuit of Sanchez) convincing Jadon Sancho that he had no future at City, so he moved at low money to Dortmund and immediately became a star. I already mentioned Stones but he's become a mess off the pitch and on. Gundogan was hurt when we bought him and is a shadow of the player he was at Dortmund. And so on. But it isn't like the absolute top tier of talent hasn't moved in the last 5 years: Ronaldo, Neymar, Mbappe all moved and City's financial advantage wasn't even in play. City were outbid by Atletico on Felix. Pogba went to United. De Ligt to Juve and De Jong to Barca. My central thesis here is that City have had an absolutely atrocious run of talent identification aside from KDB, Laporte, and probably Bernardo. The vast majority of targets have been mediocre or bad. When the time has come to pay up and buy the best, City have been outbid by rivals, and I'd be more upset by that if those players hadn't also turned out to be mediocre players. But then City have often retreated to players in Spain with buyout clauses or deals where they could spend less than what a top player would cost at the position hoping to recreate the KDB transfer over and over again. The problem is that KDB just happens to be a stud and most "value" players won't make that leap.

Then you get into the selling. The theoretical upside of buying a cut below the top end is that you should be able to move players on who you purchased. Instead, City have consistently held onto players too long and sold below value compared to rivals. Otamendi is finally being sold in a sketchy financial deal to offset the cost of Ruben Dias (a player I like but again a player purchased because preferred targets were too expensive). But Otamendi stopped being a regular starter multiple seasons ago and has hung on the wage bill and devalued as an asset. Mendy showed up and got immediately hurt but has spent multiple seasons trying to regain the form that got him purchased to no avail but is not essentially worthless as an asset and nearly worthless on the pitch to boot. Kolarov was kept until he was sold for peanuts to Italy (where he has done well). Dzeko was practically given away (and did well at Roma). Navas held onto too long then sold back to Sevilla. Stones purchased and then not able to make the leap but has stayed on the roster for two seasons devaluing as an asset the whole time. As mentioned above, it is already clear that Rodri won't be a great player at City and he was purchased at high cost and will again become less and less valuable while City try to force him to become the player they hoped to buy until he can no longer command a fee. This pattern just continues to repeat itself over and over and leaves the club short both in on field talent and the ability to compete in the transfer market. Some of this is inevitable -- if you want to compete at the very top you will need to ride your best players until they can no longer compete. So Kompany, Silva, Yaya all leave on a free because they're top players and you can't sell them early. Fernandinho will exit the same way, as did Zabaleta, as will Aguero. But in a FFP world this is a disaster as you need to buy replacements for these top talents and the math is very difficult. But then you examine how city have replaced these players and it is only more tragic: Kompany was not immediately replaced and it possibly cost City a title and CL last year. Now they are finally bringing in their 4th choice CB in Dias to try to plug the gap. Silva was not replaced with the hopes Foden or Bernardo will step in (and this i agree with). Yaya was not replaced unless you consider KDB his replacement, Aguero has been on his last legs for 3 seasons and no top striker was purchased and it's hard to imagine City spending what it takes to buy Halaand or another big name there. Fernandinho was replaced by Rodri who has not caught on and will probably need to be replaced again. Basically the entire title winning spine has not been replaced adquately and as a result City have become easier to get at with players who are a cut below the teams which achieved the most success.

I'll save this post here and add onto this opus with part 2: Tactics
 

Kliq

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Isn't the idea that Aguero's "replacement" is really just Jesus starting more regularly and Aguero coming off the bench? So when it comes to replacing Aguero, you are really looking to replace a striker that can come off the bench; which should be much easier than hunting for a striker to score 25 goals.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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What is the benchmark for success in the transfer market? City have had a lot of flops but also a lot of successful transfers in the last five years: De Bruyne, Sterling, Jesus (for the price), Gundogan (again, for the price), Sane (he would have been sold at a big profit if not for the injury), Laporte, Bernardo I would put in that category.

City have a huge financial advantage but just in terms of astuteness in buying players I'd put them above Arsenal, United, Spurs, and Chelsea if we are talking about the 15-16 season and onward. Looking beyond England, I'd also rate City's buying above other big clubs like Barca and Juve.

I think your criticism of their ability to sell players is well warranted, although a number of clubs really struggle in this area. Only Chelsea and Liverpool have really been effective sellers in recent years.

In the end, you won two straight leagues with absurd numbers of points and its very unlikely that any club could sustain that level over a long period. It just happened to be the case that another side (Liverpool) also has reached a tremendous and highly unusual level of play in the last two years. If they begin playing more like a normal title favorite who projects to 85-90 points (and they still might, as who knows what happens with form and injuries), then City will still be in with a shout.
 

teddykgb

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So now that I've gone full @mikeford let's get into the tactics City are facing and playing. Pep came to City and introduced the idea of inverted fullbacks and ran riot over the league playing a 4-3-3. The major question mark when this was implemented was really related to having KDB and David Silva as box to box mids as most managers would traditionally find them to be too attacking. But the inverted FBs covered the space behind them well and those two did an admirable job of doing a representative job of defending their position while being available to be deadly in the final third. And City have certainly been deadly using a combination of high press and high possession to have those players operating in very advanced spaces. In the end, City's formation was almost a throwback to the old W-M -- 2 CBs with a holding midfielder and 2 fullbacks right in front of them forming the defensive W while two CMs sat behind 3 forward players where a CF dropped into the hole forming the M. This sacrifices striker output for winger output but it gave City a really deadly combo while Sterling and Sane punished teams getting behind them for cutbacks and tap ins. Fernandinho roamed and snuffed out the counters either by hook or by crook and some of the best football I will ever see was played.

For some reason, in spite of taking 100 points and winning everything but the CL, Pep started tinkering. I place a lot of the blame for this at the feet of Mahrez, who in my opinion has been an absolute disaster of a signing for a host of reasons. He's actually a decent player but his introduction threw everything off kilter. Having spent a lot of money on Mahrez and chased him for multiple windows, City starting instilling him on the right (his preferred side) where he could take up an inverted winger role. Sterling has always expressed a preference to play on the left, so City went from having two wingers taking the ball outside to having inverted wingers playing closer to the striker and trying to cut inside all the time. It should be noted that Mahrez and Sterling are both incredibly one footed players, so every fullback in the league knows what is coming as they run at them. For some players, like Robben, that was fine there was no stopping him but these two do not have the beating of their man consistently enough. Sterling scored a ton of goals last season and that grabbed a lot of headlines but he went from having a good mix of goals and assists to having just 1. His finishing is incredibly improved but he's never going to be the most lethal finisher and now everyone knows exactly what will happen when the ball is played to feet. This also left Leroy Sane without a place in City's regular XI. There was a lot of angst about his transfer and I didn't mention it above because I felt it made more sense here. Some of that angst was warranted -- I think Bayern and the German NT froze him out of a WC and encouraged him to run his contract down so he could return to Germany and play for the NT and that's not great. But had City been able to offer him top wages and a guaranteed spot I doubt he is overly tempted by the move. Instead, Sane saw City chase Alexis Sanchez, buy Riyad Mahrez, and instill Raheem Sterling as competition for his position. Pep was also quite hard on him and seemed to really single him out for lapses in effort (more on that later). In a lot of ways, he was starting to look like a rotational option for Pep and it is not hard to see why he might have wanted to move to Bayern under those circumstances. As mentioned earlier, although Mahrez is after Sancho leaves, the same chase for wingers to supplement what was already there was also a sign to Sancho that he was not going to quickly ascend and so he bolts and now may end up across town running at City instead of playing for City. It was just a man management disaster. But it also completely imbalanced the W-M Pep had setup. With wingers coming inside there is no natural width. This leaves City with really 2 attacking moves: the CMs need to now go outside the wingers cutting inside or the fullbacks need to come forward to fill in the width with the CMs holding back to provide cover for the advancing FB (this is essentially how Liverpool do it). The problem is that this either pulls KDB wide or back, and neither of those is central dictating everything because he's a goddamned genius.

And so teams have taken to understanding City's very predictable attack. Every fan of every team whines about bus parking but every team plays City the same way: A back 4 that falls into a back 5 when City have the ball (which is 60% of the time or more) with a line of 4 screening them. Presumably this drove the desire to play inverted wingers: A 4-3-3 left the attacking 3 regularly against 5 with some deeper passes trying to thread things. I think it still worked far better than anything I've seen since, but you can sort of understanding wanting to bring the wingers inside more to give the central and wide defenders more to deal with. But the penalty of committing even more men forward is that you're now even more exposed in the back and City have devolved into a team where everyone decides to try to live with the first 20 minutes knowing it might suck but if done you can simply hit on the break against as you'll be able to easily bypass Rodri (who is slow and not adept at breaking up play) and you'll probably be able to generate a 2 v 2 or 3 v 3 against a retreating City back line depending on how quickly your winger can join the play and whether or not Kyle Walker has decided to bring his brain to the match. And so every match is groundhog day, City bombs forward, teams soak up the pressure because there are fewer generational talents (read: Not KDB) and they take their chances counter punching. City still overcome most times of course, but you end up with 9 losses where the defense seems weak and ineffective. Realistically, it's more of a system/style thing, because the 2 CBs and the holding midfielder are often faced with an impossible choice: either the CDM tries to aggresively close and snuff the attack out (but, if bypassed, leave his CBs for dead) or retreat with the back 2 and slowly rip the band aid off while the onrushing attack makes mincemeat of the situation. City's defenders deserve some of the blame placed upon them -- Kompany made all this work by being an incredible 1 v 1 defender who could just end an attack in an instant but City's defenders, especially when Laporte is injured (which is too often) give ground, invite the runners, then fail in their box and leave Ederson pulling the ball out of the net. I thought City had understood this when the team finally seemed to decide to pay up for Koulibaly, who is exactly the kind of defender who would be useful to just destroy this kind of trouble and was used to playing this way, but in the end the team refused to negotiate directly with ADL and eventually City started playing a Guess Who game with defenders to decide who else could fill this gap.

Pep's innovation this year brings me to another player who has contributed to the team's inability to maintain their level: Ilkay Gundogan. Which is strange because he hasn't played yet but he did play a big part in the evolution we have seemed to see at the start of this season. At the end of their last title run while holding off Liverpool, Gundogan was forced to play holding midfielder and managed to more or less do enough. As a result, we started to see Gundogan paired with Rodri by the middle of last season, sacrificing some of David Silva's creativity (and loss of legs) for some theoratical control in the midfield. If you harken everything back to Pep's old Barca, Gundogan would be playing the role of Xavi, sitting deeper and dictating play while KDB would reprise Iniesta. Coming back to the tactics, but slightly imbalancing the side, Pep tries to keep a midfielder deeper to make it harder to counter and to compensate for Rodri's lack of pace. But Gundogan himself is very one paced and too similar to Rodri. Both players are good in tight spaces and can generally handle pressure but both achieve this by being extremely regressive passers. As a result, City's pattern of play with both of them tends to result in the worst kind of tiki-taka with 5 yard square balls between them and back to the CBs which does nothing to stretch a packed defense and allows the other team a breather to regroup. So Pep has gradually shifted to an outright 4-2-3-1 this season, playing Fernandinho (back at CDM) alongside Rodri to give him the best possible partner but again sacrificing attacking for trying to stop the counter. But to help the attackers, he's got the fullbacks more advanced than ever, which is almost starting to emulate Liverpool or invite comparisons to when Dani Alves destroyed everyone. But he doesn't have Dani Alves, he has Kyle Walker who has been a good defender for City but is comfortably the worst ball player on the pitch when City plays. Theoretically he could leave Mahrez with no support and stay back while the LB moves forward but that LB is Benjamin Mendy who looked like a world beater prior to his injury but has not been able to find any form since his return. And so Mendy stays forward, Walker bombs forward. They provide the width against the defending 5 and KDB, wingers and striker line up along the defensive line while possession recycles between the FBs and the holding CDMs. Eventually, City gives up and fires a hopeless cross or turns the ball over and teams break while the FBs are too committed up the pitch and the CDMs are too slow to keep up. The whole nightmare repeats itself against any team willing to setup this way (Arsenal in cup, Lyon in CL, Wolves/Leicester already this season)

In the end, I think the poor transfers have led to Pep overcompensating in his system with disastrous results. Where he needs calm, collected defenders good in 1 v 1s, City have instead bought defenders who aren't able to excel while in danger. Any variant of Pep's system asks a ton of the fullbacks in attack and on the ball but he has purchased Walker, Mendy, and tried to convert midfileders there to make up for what Walker and Mendy can't provide on the ball (Delph, Zinchenko). But those midfielders aren't great defenders and so they eventually get exposed and have to go back to traditional fullbacks who can't provide the skill. Then Pep's favored position, the pivot, where Rodri was purchased to re-incarnate Busquets but has seemed to only re-incarnate the statue part of his game. Busquets at his prime was a masterful shithouse, constantly tackling and ending attacks while being one of the most expansive passers from deep I've ever seen. Rodri is seldom even in the frame the way he needs to be to disrupt the counter and probably more disappointingly has not shown much in the way of incisive passing or great switches of play. One of the things that is required when teams play the low block is for the pivot to be able to quickly and accurately switch field to the other winger/fullback. City end up playing this ball a lot but Rodri needs to be able to drive that ball accurately to take advantage of the space created. He tends to favor his right foot for this ball (like many players will) and so he has to shift to go from right to left (and City tends to attack down the right with KDB being there) and then the ball has far too much air under it to cause serious duress. This is Pep's position, the one he's supposed to know the best, the one where he pulled in Lahm and found Kimmich, and City are playing with a hand behind their back and trying to compensate for Rodri's inability to inhabit Fernandinho's role by giving him partners and help which is only causing the attack to suffer while still not curing the problems. To add insult to injury, City have watched Liverpool snap up Thiago, who would be a big upgrade, and are in the process of watching Arsenal snap up Aouar, who would again represent top tier talent and neither of these players were even expensive! If the plan was to give Rodri a partner, it is unconscionable to me that those two players moved this transfer window and neither to City.

Going forward, it's hard to see what Pep can really do because he's got a lot of players who don't fit their roles well. I wish to God he'd just revert to the 4-3-3 he started with and put Sterling on the right and god knows who on the left (maybe Ferran if he adjusts to the league). Leave the FBs back and play Foden/Bernardo in the old Silva role. But that leaves Rodri exposed and it is a legitimate problem for that setup to take on 9 defenders. He has experimented with 3 at the back at times but it has never looked good. I could sell myself on it if they had opted to keep Angelino and played Cancelo on the other side but the team seemed intent on selling Angelino (after he went deeper in CL than City) and Cancelo is possibly deputising at LB because Mendy is such a tire fire. This is still what I'd do because I think it gets the team back in the best shape to defend but there's still a secondary problem which is that City have not pressed with anywhere near the intensity and effectiveness that they did when Pep first arrived. The entire tactical setup is built on spacing the pitch well and quickly closing down when possession is lost before the other team has a chance to truly get their head up and organize their own play. This means that front 5 need to be incredibly active on ball loss and this was one of the reasons why Aguero initially struggled with Pep and why Sane seemed to fall out of favor. But now City is regularly putting out lineups where the press just doesn't materialized. Again, Mahrez is a big culprit here as he just has no ability to cause any trouble as a barrier and he is on the ball a lot. But when you have a Gundogan deeper or a slower David Silva, you also don't have a second CM ready to instantly press and close down triangles the way they used to. Also, as more teams play a deeper block, they don't necessarily need to have a great path out because they simply have a lot of options. Especially when combined with Pep's "revolution" having gotten more ball playing CBs, FBs, and even GKs in the sport, teams can more comfortably pass backwards out of the press and play their way out from there.

Now I'm really going to hate this paragraph contrasting it with Liverpool. They are another pressing team, but they do it quite differently and it solves many of the problems Pep has run into at City. While Liverpool does occasionally put on a high press after possession loss, Klopp has shifted away from that in recent years and Liverpool tends to spring their traps more in central midfield. This accomplishes a couple things: 1) Other teams start to assume their attacking shape and I think they catch a lot of teams in a "transitional" phase of play where the spacing and passing options aren't always there and 2) by inviting a bit more pressure, when Liverpool do win the ball back they have space to quickly fire a ball forward to the attackers who now get to operate in space that City attackers could only dream of. I can't imagine Pep adopting tactics like this so it is in many ways an academic contrast, but I think it is instructive because City are hardly the only team to regularly face a low block.
 

teddykgb

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Isn't the idea that Aguero's "replacement" is really just Jesus starting more regularly and Aguero coming off the bench? So when it comes to replacing Aguero, you are really looking to replace a striker that can come off the bench; which should be much easier than hunting for a striker to score 25 goals.
I think Jesus was the idea but I don't think he's the solution. Jesus has seemed to become more of a 2nd striker or even a winger. He works fantastically and is quite skilled on the ball but his converstion rate has been a level below and he struggles to stay onside. He's also been a guy who scores against some of the poorer or mid table sides but can't seem to impact a match against the best. He may be able to grow, he is still very young, but I am not sure he can be at the level Aguero is at even today let alone 4-5 years ago and City probably need that kind of striker to achieve the goals of PL and CL. I really do have a lot of hope for him but he has a lot of growth to do to make it there and he keeps getting injured when Aguero is injured so he doesn't get that good run of 8-10 weeks of regular playtime.
What is the benchmark for success in the transfer market? City have had a lot of flops but also a lot of successful transfers in the last five years: De Bruyne, Sterling, Jesus (for the price), Gundogan (again, for the price), Sane (he would have been sold at a big profit if not for the injury), Laporte, Bernardo I would put in that category.

City have a huge financial advantage but just in terms of astuteness in buying players I'd put them above Arsenal, United, Spurs, and Chelsea if we are talking about the 15-16 season and onward. Looking beyond England, I'd also rate City's buying above other big clubs like Barca and Juve.

I think your criticism of their ability to sell players is well warranted, although a number of clubs really struggle in this area. Only Chelsea and Liverpool have really been effective sellers in recent years.

In the end, you won two straight leagues with absurd numbers of points and its very unlikely that any club could sustain that level over a long period. It just happened to be the case that another side (Liverpool) also has reached a tremendous and highly unusual level of play in the last two years. If they begin playing more like a normal title favorite who projects to 85-90 points (and they still might, as who knows what happens with form and injuries), then City will still be in with a shout.
I probably should have started the initial post that I am very heavily and severely grading on a scale here. I was a fan of City before the money came and I know how hilariously bad it can be and how ridiculous my complaints are. My post is written from the perspective of City wanting to be a regular CL semi finalist / regular league winner at the absolute top of the food chain of this sport. Essentially a top 5 in all of football kind of team, competing with Bayern, Juve, current Liverpool, Real Madrid. By any measure City have been incredible in this era and I am fully cognizant that I will never experience a better period as a fan than this. So please take it all in the spirit it is intended which is harsh critique of an obviously fantastic squad.
 

wonderland

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Thanks I enjoyed that.

I always enjoy reading how Pep isn’t a genius. Also, from the second City signed Mahrez I wondered why.
 

teddykgb

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The final part of my treatise is preparation. After narrowly hanging on against Liverpool the season prior, the hope for City last season was that Liverpool had had quite a bit of fortune and would fall off the pace. Nobody saw LiVARpool coming and their confidence only grew along with the truth that there is something about the collection of players and style of play that allows them to grind out improbable results. So it definitely went the other way with Liverpool likely to get 100 points just as City had done the previous year. My point in this is that a new standard has been set in the PL and you're looking at dropping about 20 points or else you're not winning the title.

With that in mind, City faced real difficulty with playing "deep" into the CL because they played long enough to have to go to Portugal and then got knocked out in a stunning loss which made the whole thing pointless and only served to set the club back in preparation. As a result, City were granted a week later start to the season to compensate for the additional time in Portugal. This meant a reduced pre season, at best, but the club basically decided to go with the no pre season option. Maybe this will pay off long term if other teams really tire and City find themselves more fresh but City play 0 friendlies and Pep didn't even return to Manchester until just before the season and since he had apparently gone to Barcelona to talk with Messi, he had to quarantine when he came back. If you accept what I wrote above about the issues with City's recruitment and squad, then City were facing a need to at least reload if not rebuild as the team itself was getting stale and had too many positions to fill. Things got off to a promising start with the signing of Ake for CB depth who can cover LB and Ferran Torres who is a young talent you might hope will replace some of what Sane brought. City were also quickly linked to Koulibaly as well as, of course, Messi. Signing a nearly sure thing CB and the surest thing of attackers in Messi would have been more than just a statement of intent, it would have been a very quick reload of some high quality into a team which needed the reinforcement.

But everything just went haywire. Messi seemed on then suddenly off, a lot of valuable time wasted. Koulibaly deal just floundered. City then were linked to Diego Carlos, but then to Kounde, briefly Upamecano, maybe Gimenez, basically any CB anyone has wanted as it seemed City was unwilling to meet Napoli's asking price. Not paying is annoying because as I said earlier City need to shop more for the absolute top class but what's far more annoying about all that is that City went through the ADL disasterclass with Jorginho and should have been better prepared to either pay or quickly move on. Instead City spent the little off season they had chasing Koulibaly and after going through a few more rounds on other names suddenly landed on Ruben Dias. Dias himself may or may not be good, it's quite hard to say, but the process of ending up there does not suggest a team that knows which players will suit the system and targeting and acquiring that talent.

Compounding all of this, the health of the team went to hell. Laporte and Mahrez got Covid, later Gundogan. Bernardo and Cancelo both get hurt on international duty in one of the dumbest international breaks we have ever had. Aguero, who had hurt himself before Portugal, suddenly had an unknown setback and wasn't ready to start the season. Foden got himself kicked out of the England camp for thinking with the wrong brain. As a result, Manchester City, who have bought depth instead of quality suddenly also had no depth. The team also had almost no pre season, which means Ake and Torres had very little training in the system and Ake was forced to immediately start. Of course, City had 3 matches in the first week and the schedule doesn't let up for anyone. Mahrez made it back for the cup match mid week, Laporte probably will make it back later this week. The rest are probably tracking for after another international break. Foden already played 3 matches in a week and looked it in his 3rd against Leicester. City have already fielded a youth squad in the Carabao and have had multiple youth team players on their bench each match. Jesus then gets hurt and City had to play Sterling as a CF with a 17 year old youth player as the main substitute. Again, City have spent hundreds of millions of pounds in the last few seasons and can't field a bench in an admittedly difficult injury crisis.

I think what bothers me most about all this is that the team showed little adaptability. If the plan was to sign a bunch of players, then the plan also should have been to get everyone in early to get embedded in the system. When Aguero suffers a setback the team needs to find an option who can play ST in case Jesus (who is injury prone) got injured. As an example, Jovic seems completely available on loan from Madrid and Cavani is a free agent right now. Could City not have quickly moved onto a player like that in order to plug what could be a 4-6 week gap? In a world where City can lose a dozen points early and still win the title maybe you don't have to panic but the league standard right now says you can lose 2 or 3 matches a season. City can't afford to be leaving business late in the window like this, then needing to bed players in to a complex system, and pissing away points all the while while hoping the team will later come together. It's just moronic and sets the squad up for failure at the outset and then only got worse as injury crept in.
 

PedroSpecialK

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LiVARpool


In reality, these are a great read, and verbalize a lot of what I've seen changing in City's game but haven't been able to quite put a finger on - specifically being married to the inverted wing play since Mahrez's arrival.
 

OCST

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Great posts. Lets me get my head around some of the things I've intuited, eg that City are off their best and can be gotten at, but I didn't have the vocabulary for.

The one hot take I had at the time that you've backed up is that Mahrez was a square peg in a round hole, I never thought they needed him.
 

SocrManiac

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I can't find or remember where I heard it (this weekned, no less), but somebody put forth the idea that teams are bypassing the Citeh tactical foul and having more luck on the counter/maintaining possession. I'm not sure a performance against the run and gun Foxes is the right place to put a finger on it, but I'm wondering if there might be a grain of truth to it. I don't think Leicester's goals reflect an inability to stop the counter (the main problem seemed to be simple discipline and positioning). That said, as a rule City's defense is necessarily going to require strong organization and/or top performers to play both sides of the ball and be smart in transition, so it makes anecdotal sense.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Going forward, it's hard to see what Pep can really do because he's got a lot of players who don't fit their roles well. I wish to God he'd just revert to the 4-3-3 he started with and put Sterling on the right and god knows who on the left (maybe Ferran if he adjusts to the league). Leave the FBs back and play Foden/Bernardo in the old Silva role.
Maybe Pep is listening to you?

Today's lineup seems to be 4-3-3 with two 8s in front of Rodri, natural footed wingers playing wider (Torres right, Mahrez left), and Sterling up front. Only a small adjustment to move Sterling to RW once one of the strikers is fit.

Edit: I guess Torres and Mahrez are actually switching sides every so often.
 
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teddykgb

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Maybe Pep is listening to you?

Today's lineup seems to be 4-3-3 with two 8s in front of Rodri, natural footed wingers playing wider (Torres right, Mahrez left), and Sterling up front. Only a small adjustment to move Sterling to RW once one of the strikers is fit.

Edit: I guess Torres and Mahrez are actually switching sides every so often.
Unfortunately they switched permanently and the shape was back to a 4-3-3 but inverted wingers. Fortunately Dyche played a 4-4-2 with a high line so City carved it open with Sterling having space to make creative runs and sometimes finish. Tactically walker stayed back and Mendy played as a virtual winger with no defensive responsibilities which tilts the formation left. Interestingly he played KDB on that side so they basically loaded up on the left. Also way less pressing than normal, mostly content to let Burnleh have the ball a bit more and thus had a bit more space to play into
 

67YAZ

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It's taken me a while to process it all, Teddy. Didn't realize we got paid by the word around here.

I wonder how much the extended FFP drama impacted their moves in the transfer market. Where City competes up at the very tip-top of the market, seems plausible that the substantive threat of a UCL ban would make them an unattractive destination for some elite players. That's all speculation, but the next couple of windows could shed some light.
 

coremiller

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I don't think anyone is going to get to mid-90s point totals this year. Liverpool and City are the only teams capable of hitting those heights but Liverpool have too many injuries and City are just too far behind pace. To get to even 90 points for the season, City would have to play at a 98-point pace the rest of the way. Certainly they could do that and rip off a long winning streak like they have in previous years, but I don't think it's probable as they've looked more mortal than in previous seasons,

That means 85ish points may be enough to win the league (the current leaders, Liverpool and Spurs, are on pace right now for 80). That opens the door to the Chelsea/Tottenham/United tier to contend.
#oldtakes exposed. Since I wrote this on Dec. 2, City have won 11 of 13 in the league, including 10 in a row. In those 10 consecutive wins they have conceded two goals: a stoppage time consolation to Chelsea while up 3-0, and the extremely marginal penalty to Liverpool last week.

I think this has been maybe Pep's most impressive season. City have gone long stretches without their best player (KDB), their best striker (Aguero), and what had previously been their best defender (Laporte). They were kind of a mess at the beginning of the season. But Pep has fixed their problems and they are now clearly the league's best team.
 

teddykgb

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Bumping this in honor of Phil Foden. Jokingly labeled “Stockport Iniesta” he’s mostly played LW this season but he’s arguably Citys best player with KDB injured. Just a glimpse of what he’s doing right now:

View: https://twitter.com/rostadiusv/status/1384981413678751748?s=21


Hes made a leap this year. Youth have had a hard time making it to Citys first XI for obvious reasons but Foden looks poised to be a regular for the next decade. The Iniesta comparisons seem off the mark because he’s probably Citys most natural goal scorer with Aguero sidelined and about to depart. He’s not at that level of course but he’s almost becoming City’s Cruyff in the sense that he’s his midfielder forward roaming and creating across the front three positions.

Reading my original post, two players I really lit up have been crucial this season in Mahrez and Gundogan. When City came out slow playing the style I described every word I had posted seemed too accurate but Pep really did change it and both players flourished in altered roles. Things have gotten a little ragged lately with all the fixtures and I think PSG will be a bridge too far for a team that simply lacks a goal scorer but the overall structure is setup so strongly that simply replacing Aguero with a truly clinical striker should give City access to another level of play. Health can always be an issue and the upcoming Euros will put many players at risk but if City don’t lose anyone there next season may be even more impressive than this one.

The only other thing that really warrants calling out is how incredibly successful Ruben Dias was in his first season. We see so many players struggle to settle in England but he hit the ground running and basically benched Laporte who had been Citys best defender. A truly remarkable transformation of a back line which had been really prone to 1 shot 1 goals errors
 

67YAZ

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If there is an underrated element to Pep’s work, it’s player development.
 

teddykgb

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One thing that is interesting about Pep staying longer at City is seeing whether his style can be sustained. Foden has come on leaps and bounds. But you look at someone like Sterling who Pep seemed to transform and he’s arguably the worst he’s ever been as a PL player. Sterling was Peps first project but it wouldn’t shock me if he were to be sold. Sane fell out with him. He’s a crazy intense guy and cares about tactics in an unnatural way, I wonder if some players just can’t match that intensity long term
 

teddykgb

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Congrats to Citeh, I hope they pull off the triple. I love a lot of these players, with KDB far and away my favorite.
I think the “oil state human atrocities “ stuff is way overblown and is mostly just sour grapes but I do understand that people have a hard time accepting City as gate crashers who simply got lucky. But I think the players have consistently been among the most likable teams in the Premier League. High skill, high class, very little shithousery aside from Fernandinho who shithouses in a professional way that never really puts anyone’s career in jeopardy. I think players like Silva and Kompany largely suffered in being underrated because everyone hated the entire project so much that their brilliance was often undersold. This years iteration was probably the worst City squad of the last 5 years and I think the players and manager deserve a ton of credit for just grinding this one out. Not enough things can be said about how good Dias was and how much he transformed the squad. Pep saying he didn’t like his team and how they were playing and making decisive tweaks changed a season which seemed doomed.

And while I was typing this it is announced that fucking Lahoz has the CL final so I suppose that is that and I’ll need to be content with league and cup
 

Zososoxfan

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I think the “oil state human atrocities “ stuff is way overblown and is mostly just sour grapes but I do understand that people have a hard time accepting City as gate crashers who simply got lucky. But I think the players have consistently been among the most likable teams in the Premier League. High skill, high class, very little shithousery aside from Fernandinho who shithouses in a professional way that never really puts anyone’s career in jeopardy. I think players like Silva and Kompany largely suffered in being underrated because everyone hated the entire project so much that their brilliance was often undersold. This years iteration was probably the worst City squad of the last 5 years and I think the players and manager deserve a ton of credit for just grinding this one out. Not enough things can be said about how good Dias was and how much he transformed the squad. Pep saying he didn’t like his team and how they were playing and making decisive tweaks changed a season which seemed doomed.

And while I was typing this it is announced that fucking Lahoz has the CL final so I suppose that is that and I’ll need to be content with league and cup
If you're not subscribed to the Zonal Marking podcast, I highly recommend it generally. Yesterday they posted a discussion about how this year's side compares to previous league winning iterations. I only made it about 15 minutes before passing out, but the one thing I remember is basically that they scored a lot less and conceded a lot less. Shocking, I know. I'm sure it gets more granular in the other 45 minutes.
 

Tuff Ghost

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Jul 15, 2005
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<snip>
but the one thing I remember is basically that they scored a lot less and conceded a lot less.
</snip>
I am not sure if the conceding a lot less piece is true. I was looking at the past few Premier League champions this morning because I was fascinated by Gundogan being City's leading goal scorer (12) and how unlikely that seems for a champion.

City have 3 games to change these numbers, but here's the current state versus the past few champions:
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The more interesting piece to me is the top goal-scorers on champions. Below is the top 3 goal-scorers on the past few champions:
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Of course the year is not over, so it's possible that Gundogan could put up a couple of hat-tricks and make this all for naught, but it seems likely that they will not have anyone close to 20 goals, which is uncommon.

If you look at the percentage of goals scored by the top-3 goal scorers as a percentage of team goals, it shows how widely distributed this iteration of City's goal-scoring has been (and also how untypical the Vardy/Mahrez-led Leicester City team was).
41052
Pep has gone striker-less before in his past, but this team is pretty unique. It's definitely an impressive title in a much different way from previous City titles.