Jonathan Wilson Man. City’s defensive frailties
The game that settled the 2019-20 Premier League title was a microcosm of the season. Manchester City played some extraordinary possession football. They moved the ball around in mesmerising patterns. At times, particularly in the opening quarter of the game, there was a sense of greatness about them, such that the thought Liverpool had a lead of more than 20 points felt vaguely incredible. And then Chelsea broke, Benjamin Mendy dived in and Christian Pulisic scored.
That’s the way it was all season for City. They dominated games and struggled to create or take chances at times but, more especially, they were extremely vulnerable to quick counter attacks. Even in the second half at Stamford Bridge, as City equalised and began to assert pressure, Chelsea kept troubling them with balls in behind the back four. It’s that, really, that was the difference between Liverpool and City.
Liverpool maintained the high standards of their 2018-19 season – indeed, through November and December probably exceeded them; City did not. After that game at Stamford Bridge, both Liverpool and City had played 31 games. At that point, City had scored eight goals more than Liverpool, but Jurgen Klopp’s side had conceded 14 fewer (afterwards, with the title won, Liverpool’s focus wavered). It’s not in any way to downplay the excellence of Liverpool’s attacking play to observe that the reason they won the title was the quality of their defending.
Which raises a vital question: pressing and preventing the counter has always been a key part of the Pep Guardiola philosophy. His Barcelona side were masters of it. They pioneered a number of aspects that have been so widely adopted they now seem basic. One player would go to the man with the ball, three others forming a ring around him to cut off passing options. If the ball wasn’t won back within five seconds of it being lost, they would fall back into their defensive shape. It was so new, so ferociously acted that Alex Ferguson admitted his side had been bewildered by Barcelona’s intensity both in the 2009 and 2011 Champions League finals.
Yet increasingly, Guardiola sides have proved to have a glass jaw. Get through the press and they can be exposed. That was brutally clear last season. With the ball, City were brilliant, which is why they scored four or more on 11 occasions. But without it they were badly flawed.
Nine league defeats is a huge number for a club of their stature, and they were exposed not only by the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United, but also by Southampton and Norwich City.
It may be that is primarily an issue of personnel. The decision not to sign a replacement for Vincent Kompany looks baffling, particularly given the questions over the form of John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi,
Increasingly, Guardiola sides have proved to have a glass jaw. Get through the press and they can be exposed
and those shortcomings were exposed with the injury to Aymeric Laporte, which in turn meant Fernandinho having to play as a defender, placing increased pressure on Rodri in midfield. City have signed Nathan Ake from Bournemouth for £40 million to try to remedy that, and may even look to sign another centre-back before the deadline.
There are issues at centre-forward as well. Sergio Aguero is 32, while Gabriel Jesus remains frozen in his development. At the moment he is just a notch below the very highest level. He’s only 23 and it may be that he suddenly explodes with a 40-goal season, but equally it may not. They may also wonder when Mendy is ever going to deliver on the potential he showed at Monaco, and whether Rodri really is a long-term successor to Fernandinho, who is now 35.
But the biggest question is over structure and organisation. There is an element of self-perpetuation here, that once a weakness is seen, teams try to exploit it and so it becomes more and more apparent. And perhaps to an extent it is reasonable to point out that no team can do everything perfectly, and that if you prioritise passing and touch in your defenders it almost inevitably means that certain defensive qualities will be compromised. The likes of Virgil van Dijk – or Kompany – who are both good on the ball and commanding defenders, are very rare.
But the success of Liverpool raises a vital question. They are at least as aggressive in their press, and yet they very rarely get caught out by simple balls in behind them. What is it that they are doing differently? Is the success of their Gegenpressing simply a result of their ferocity through midfield, something Guardiola again perhaps has to sacrifice to an extent to encourage his side’s mastery of the ball? Or is it that opponents have become familiar with the Guardiola style of pressing that seemed so radical a decade ago, and that Klopp has taken that to new extremes of organisation? If that is the case then for perhaps the first time in his career, there is tactical work for Guardiola to do.