Many have noted that Mancini appeared to have "loosened the reins" or "released the handbrake". There is something to that, which I'll come to shortly. However, more generally, my main takeaway from this match was that Mancini's tactical approach has more flexibility than many have suggested.
I'll start by talking about the first 60 minutes of the match, where all would agree that City were playing their usual formation. When Aguero was substituted, some changes occurred, which I'll talk about later on.
With that in mind, the following are the key points that caught my attention during the match.
Holding Players
As many are already aware, Mancini's usual formation, the 4-2-3-1, features two holding midfielders (the "2" part, just in front of the defenders). Many accused Mancini early on of playing with three holding midfielders, because of the presence of Yaya Toure. Hopefully, everyone is well aware now that this was not the case. Toure is used by Mancini as an attacking player, and his key goals in the FA cup demonstrate his importance in attack. (That said, he is a beast on the defensive end as well.)
Two holding midfielders is the usual, but in this match, we saw Mancini also happy to use only one holding midfielder. In particular, even though Mancini wrote the usual 4-2-3-1 on the team sheet, one of the "2" players, Gareth Barry, was given the green light to attack.
Indeed, we could see right from the starting whistle that Barry was going to be playing forward. First in defense:
and then in attack:
This continued throughout the first 60 minutes:
Later on, when de Jong was substituted out (for Aguero), the two central midfielders were Yaya Toure and Gareth Barry. Here too, one was allowed to attack. But in this case, as both Toure and Barry are capable attackers (whereas de Jong seems to be defensive minded in general), they took it in turn to go forward. For example, here is Barry getting forward:
Last week, during the Community Shield match, Barry's role was played by James Milner, who also had a license to get forward in attack. However, as I pointed out in my previous post, he seemed to go too far. Perhaps he was less astute than Barry about finding the times at which to get forward, but in any case, the result was that Milner and Yaya rarely were forward together, so instead of an extra attacker we got a Milner-for-Yaya swap.
In this match, Barry seemed to get the balance just right. As can be seen in the pictures, he was often forward at the same time as Toure, adding to the attack rather than subtracting from it.
Players Up Front
I keep hearing commentators saying that Mancini needs two up front. Here again, he showed that he can do this within his same 4-2-3-1 by having one of the "3" midfielders push forward:
Or if Dzeko wants to move out of center, then two of the "3" midfielders can go up top:
Movement
A midfielder moving along side Dzeko, up top, is only a special case of a more general trend we saw in this match: movement amongst the attacking players. Mancini has often spoken in the past about the need for more movement from these players. In this match, I would have to think he got what he wanted.
Dzeko in particular was all over the place. Here is Dzeko dropping deep:
Dzeko on the left:
Dzeko on the right:
Dzeko the attacking midfielder:
The other attacking players also had lots of movement. The pictures above show Johnson, Silva, and Toure all playing the center-forward. Here's another one:
But we also saw wide players dropping deeper or more central:
We saw Yaya Toure moving out of his central position to play on the right side:
Even Gareth Barry was seen attacking centrally and on either side, as we saw above.
In general, this was a wonderful display of fluid movement by all the attacking players. And I should think this is exactly the sort of movement Mancini has been asking for. This sort of movement poses dilemmas for defenders as they have to determine in each case whether to follow the attacking player (opening up space behind them) or let them go free. The more movement they have, the more likely they are to find space open up somewhere in a critical area.
Width
Aside from fast breaks, it is still a fairly accurate statement to say that "width" in the form of crosses comes solely from the fullbacks in Mancini's system.
The term "width" also (at least to me) means having an outlet on the side(s) to pass the ball. Since this is a less dangerous area, defenses often leave space available there. And when the defense is pressing and bearing down on the central attackers with the ball, an attacker stationed out wide can be an easy place to send the ball to safety.
In this match, many commented on Johnson providing width, presumably in this sense (since he rarely crosses the ball). However, as we saw above, Dzeko also lined up to the left of the defenders on occasion. Yaya Toure moved out to the right. And Silva moved off to the left.
Overall Attacking Performance (In the First 60 Minutes)
In the first half alone, City produced 19 shots on goal, 7 of them on target. And those numbers may not even include all shots that were blocked. City hit the post twice. Indeed, they had 8 chances where some commentators would have said they "should have scored". It required some amount of luck and an extraordinary performance from their goalkeeper for Swansea to keep City at bay for the 45 minutes.
The second half continued just as the first half ended. City produced more quality chances. Finally, one of them went in: when keeper Vorm palmed away Johnson's shot, Dzeko was waiting there to shove it into the back of the net.
A score of 1-0 at 60 minutes, in my view, was still flattering to the away team. City easily could have scored multiple goals by then.
Aguero's Introduction
When Sergio Aguero was substituted for de Jong at about 60 minutes, City changed to a 4-4-2 formation, according to the commentators. This gave us a brief look at another tactical approach by Mancini.
My impression, at this point, was that both Dzeko and Aguero would be playing as center-forwards. But this did not happen for the most part. Aguero mostly played deep:
As we saw above, Dzeko also played deep in the first half. And that continued here:
Aguero also played out to the right (as Yaya did earlier):
There were very few moments when Dzeko and Aguero were both up front. One important such moment, though, was the 2nd goal: Richards sent a cross along the ground in front of goal, Dzeko and Aguero were both charging at goal, and Aguero poked it in at the back post. However, as we saw in the pictures above, Silva, Johnson, and Yaya Toure also played this role earlier, especially in this same situation (crosses along the ground on fast breaks).
Overall, it was hard for me to see exactly what the tactical differences were upon Aguerio's introduction. In addition to the fact that neither Dzeko nor Aguero was playing up top all that much, we also didn't get to see the new formation for very long.
At 74 minutes (less than 15 minutes after Aguero came on), Savic was substituted for Johnson. As a result, Clichy was moved up to midfield. Compared to Johnson, Clichy was very reluctant to get forward. So from that point, we had fewer attackers involved up front.
At 82 minutes (just over 20 minutes after Aguero came on), Milner was substituted for Silva. Now the two wide players were Clichy and Yaya Toure, both of whom were now playing out of position. Hence, I'm very reluctant to draw any conclusions from the last 10 minutes of the match.
On the basis of the three goals scored after Aguero came on, the Church of the 4-4-2 is declaring victory. Personally, I am not convinced, as you can see from my thinking above.
My overall impressions of the last 30 minutes are these:
- Aguero is a special player. The third goal didn't seem like a chance that was any better than the 8 created in the first half, and yet Aguero with a bit of luck and a lot of brilliance, created a goal out of it by kicking the ball over the keeper and then backward, behind him, to David Silva. The fourth goal similarly did not seem all that threatening. Toure, Silva, and Johnson all had shots from even closer in the first half, but Aguero's went in. Maybe this is just a fluke, but one gets the impression that he is a very special talent.
- Dzeko, Aguero, and Silva seemed to link up well. Dzeko and Aguero each tried to backheel to the other once. Neither worked, but one got the impression that, in a short time, it will start working.
- The other attacking players seemed a bit more reserved in the 4-4-2, perhaps due to its unfamiliarity. This is another reason I can't see why this formation made the team more attacking. In many cases, we had fewer attacking players.
- City were also helped by the fact that Swansea were getting worn down. Also, after the first goal, Swansea made substitutions that, according to the commentators, showed they were going for it, becoming even more attack minded. Pushing more players forward opened up more room at the back, which made it easier for City to score.
Conclusions
All in all, that was a great performance by City's attacking players, particularly in the first 60 minutes, and a great performance by Sergio Aguero in the last 30.
It will be interesting to see how Mancini deploys his men in the upcoming matches. My best guess is that Mancini used a 4-4-2 this time because it would be most familiar to Aguero, and that in the next match, we'll see a 4-2-3-1 with Aguero playing in Yaya Toure's position. If that happens, I expect to see an incredible display by fluid attacking players. I also expect members of the Church of the 4-4-2 to groan and complain the whole time.
No comments:
Post a Comment