Nasri and Silva

In today's match between Manchester City and Norwich City, one aspect that caught my attention was the influence of Samir Nasri. For only the third time this season, Nasri completed more passes than David Silva in a match when both started. One of those was the very first match that Nasri played for City in the league. Since then, Silva has been the dominant creative influence for City in every match save one, when Silva was man-marked for most of the match against Everton.

In Nasri's first four matches, both he and Silva played all over the midfield, in some sense playing the same position. Against Spurs, this seemed to work well, with both players completing over 60 passes. Against Wigan, though, it did not seem to work, as Nasri had little influence, completing half as many passes. It worked a bit better against Fulham, but over all of those four matches, the record is not great.

Starting with the match at Blackburn, the tactics changed somewhat: Nasri played more out wide. He was mostly left against Blackburn and Liverpool, and mostly right against Wolves and United, but all the while, he was playing mostly to one side or the other

Over that same period, there were three matches (Aston Villa, QPR, and Newcastle) in which only one of the two started.

At the end of this period, I had the impression that the two did not play especially well together. If anything, it seemed as though Milner playing in a wide role was able to link up better with Silva.

However, today's match showed yet another approach. Nasri played centrally, rather than wide, but unlike those early matches, he played slightly deeper than Silva. These Guardian chalkboard shows the subtle difference in their passing:



In some sense, it may be fairer to say that, rather than Nasri playing deeper, Silva played further forward. Most of his passing in previous matches looks much like Nasri's in this one, whereas in this match, he stayed closer to the strikers.

One should keep in mind that Silva plays further forward for the Spanish national team. And while he does drop deep to get the ball for City, he often rushes back, and I often get the impression that he wants to be closer to goal, able to link up with the strikers to create goals or score them himself.

Nasri playing deeper is also interesting for another reason. As Michael Cox of zonalmarking.net has suggested, the one thing that City may be lacking, compared to the top sides in Europe, is a deep-lying playmaker. Someone like a Xabi Alonso, say, who can start attacks and make exceptionally accurate long passes. Such players are hence able score from free kicks.

Oh, did I mention that Nasri scored from a free kick today?

As I always try to remind myself, this was only one match. Nasri's deeper positioning in this match may have been a one-off. But it also may be a glimpse of the future. Time will tell.