Premier league defending champions Manchester city secured three points from a away trip to Newcastle with a good all round performance. Lets analyze the game tactically,
Beautiful indeed!
Manchester city probably played the best footballing display of the season so far in the first 45 mins of the game. In fact, I was planning to do a tactical review for the Manchester United’s game, but the magnanimity of City’s display in the first half changed my mind to write about them instead. If at all there is a phrase that will do justice to their first half performance, this will do,
“Are they Barcelona in disguise?”
When I say disguise, I am not by any means stating City copycatted the Catalan’s style. No they did not imitate Barcelona’s tika taka. This is a very new breed of football. Last time I had seen something similar to this style of football, It was when Thierry Henry, Pires and Viera showcasing alchemical combination of tika taka and counter attacking football during their invincible season.
City when at possession maintained a compact structure where the players remains close enough to each other for some breath taking one-twos and also hunted Newcastle as a pack. When Newcastle possessed the ball in midfield, they still maintained their compactness as the team pressured the opponents to disrupt their attacks. This is what exactly Barcelona do in their every outing. But the difference is when Newcastle lose the ball close to the City’s goal, suddenly everything changes. No more compactness! Support range increases with players moving away from each-other. In simple terms they counter attacked. Aguero and Garcia scored a goal each as the first half ended 0-2 to the home side.
Second half: Newcastle attacked, City countered.
It was totally a different story in the second half, It was Newcastle’s turn to attack. They showed directness in their attack with Ba holding up the ball well in the final third. With five minutes into the second half, Newcastle pegged one goal back with Ba cleverly beating the Manchester City’s offside trap to head home to start a comeback. Next twenty minutes was very similar as the home side dominated especially from the left hand side where Santon and Gutierrez made ride after rides at City’s right back. But against the run of the play, the champions scored from a counter to settle the contest. Zabeletta assisted and Yaya Toure scored.
In my opinion, Zabeletta is the best right-back in the world. When most of the modern full backs will ask their manager “Do I need to defend boss?.” But Zabeletta is a complete package with some good defending, constant overlapping runs and sometimes he will get some goals too. Argentinian brilliance!
After the goal, Newcastle lost their rhythm and City had some more chances through counters but Aguero and Dzeko wasted some fantastic opportunities to extend the lead. Anyway Manchester City won the game and closed the gap between the two Manchester clubs (at least for time being). Still I dont understand how they failed to reach the knockout stages of the champions league, may be the team was not mentally ready for the Europe’s elite trophy.
Verdict: Manchester City – A footballing recipe!
I will leave you guys with some stats of the game,
Match Stats