City create goals from Ederson’s long balls
EDERSON finally has an assist to his name as a City player after Sergio Aguero controlled one of his goal kicks against Huddersfield and found the net.
The Brazilian international showed his aptitude in his very first pre-season with the club last summer and also has a Guinness World Record for longest drop-kick.
Sean Dyche likened the situation to having Ronald Koeman in net and Ederson’s passing range does give managers something else to prepare for, but what is significant about the long goal-kick? Put simply, it’s a game-changer.
Because you can’t be offside from a goal kick, any team attacking City enough to force Ederson into possession either has to leave enough men back to be able to defend for the long ball or risk getting caught out.
If a team wants to press Pep Guardiola’s side high, Ederson’s ability thus forces the opponents to stretch the space between defence and attack, creating more space between the lines for City players to get into. As Pep explained after signing Ederson: “In the goal kicks when the opposition makes high pressing and it’s complicated now we have the chance to put the ball in the other box, and of course we have a little bit more space in the middle.
“When I was at Bayern Munich we played Benfica in the Champions League and he was there, and when we tried to analyse them we saw it four or five times. He has this quality to put the ball in the other box and it’s not offside. We spread out the opponents and we can have more space in the middle.”