00:00All right, hello everybody. Manchester City have just absolutely poleaxed Juventus in the
00:05Club World Cup and I think it's safe to say that Pep Guardiola is on his revenge arc. He's entered
00:11his villain era and no, I don't really know what that means either but I was talking to people
00:17younger than me last night and they both said it so yeah. He has rebuilt the squad, he has
00:23completely reinvented the tactics and that was the most battered I have seen an old lady get
00:28since the Queen Mother circa 1998 at literally any public function. So, let's explore.
00:38Now this video is not a long one because we've only had a quick look at this new system he's
00:43using but
00:44even within that quick look, if I was the rest of the Premier League, I would be deeply concerned.
00:50I think it's an incredibly clever tweak on what they were doing last season which in the process
00:54solves two of the biggest problems they were facing and may take the rest of the Premier League
01:00a fair old while to figure out what to do with. But just before you and I figure out what
01:06to do
01:07with it, here is my contractually obligated reminder that all of our Club World Cup coverage is brought
01:12to you by DAZN where you can watch every single game of the Club World Cup for free with the
01:16link
01:17in the description. And this is obviously normally the part where I would try and do some kind of
01:21funny skit about the sponsorship but it is Friday afternoon, it is 27 degrees out there so I'm going
01:27to streamline this as much as possible so we can all go touch some grass which I hear is very
01:33good.
01:34Right, so this was your Manchester City lineup in that game and I would say it just feels right that
01:39Pep Guardiola is back to a 4-3-3 but that's the most like a virgin I could ever imagine
01:44sounding and we
01:45saw that for all the money they've spent with the new players at the top end of the pitch,
01:49the key to this system is actually going to be these two. Ryan Aitnori and Mateus Nunez,
01:55I would imagine you're going to see the pair of them starting the majority of games for Man City
01:59in the two fullback positions because they allow them to do this. So Man City's problem for the last
02:06I'd probably say like two years is that either by inverting a fullback or moving a defender into the
02:11midfield, the shape they're actually trying to get into is basically either a 3-2-5 or more recently
02:18a 2-3-5. And if you can't implement this sort of structure in the final third then great,
02:24fantastic. When Man City use it, it allows some of the best players in the world to be in positions
02:29where they are the best players in the world and you combine that individual brilliance with this
02:34structure and whatever game plan they're using against that opposition and nine times out of ten
02:39they'll find a way through. But the problem is that the games in which this haven't worked have
02:44become more and more frequent. Teams have become better coached and better prepared to sit in
02:49really deep, really compact low blocks and frustrate this system. So they need new ways within it to
02:56open up the opposition. And against Juventus, we saw what the two main ones are going to be.
03:01So phase one, with the ball at the back, note the positions of both the wingers and the fullbacks.
03:07Unlike in recent seasons where the two wingers would be very, very wide to stretch the opposition
03:12defense to allow the eight, so a Gundogan, a De Bruyne, a Foden, a Bernardo Silva, very technical
03:19players. Now instead, that front three is really narrow. The width in this system now comes entirely
03:27from both fullbacks pushing up and pushing out. So yeah, not unlike a Wonderbra. Now this gives Man City
03:35a few different options here. Like number one, it stretches the opposition across the middle of the
03:39the pitch instead of the far end. So there's more space for these players to try and play through
03:45them. And if you look at the players they've got there, they've got Rodri, they've got Reinders,
03:48they've got Bernardo Silva. Very, very good ball progressives who like to carry it through spaces.
03:53And now you've made those spaces for them. Or slightly more cleverly, cleverly, whatever the
03:59word is, because you've got a goalkeeper who's really good with the ball and you've bunched these
04:03three together here, you can have all of them drop much nearer to the goal and go long into this
04:10space.
04:11And the beauty of that is because you've got your forwards all quite narrow. When they do drop to
04:15receive it, they're doing it in a central area. So if one of them gets it, isn't tracked by the
04:19defender and turns, you've now got a 3v3 in the middle of the pitch. Previously, if you were trying
04:25to hit them in the wide areas, you might get a 1v1, but it's really far away from the goal
04:29and really
04:30far away from your teammates. Now, obviously, Edison has a bit of a mare for that Juventus
04:36equaliser, but you can see in the build-up to it, that's exactly what they're doing. The three
04:40midfielders have dropped to draw all of their markers here towards them. The fullbacks are nice
04:45and wide, which is stretching these two away from the rest of the defence and leaves a compact front
04:51three with all this space for them to play into. Both the wingers here have already dropped,
04:56expecting the ball to arrive into this space. And there was loads of more, like, subtle examples
05:01of that happening in the match as well. Like, they don't even use it here, but look at what
05:05Jeremy Doku does. He comes short and offers to receive it into the space, which allows Ait Nori
05:11to bomb on down the side, to basically be the winger. The thing is, this is not the clever bit
05:17about
05:17what they're doing, because it doesn't do anything to stop the opposition just going into a low block
05:21and sitting deep and continuing to frustrate you in the final third. It's how this phase one
05:28morphs into phase two. When they get into the final third, the two wingers, who have been nice
05:33and narrow, go back to being nice and wide, which immediately in of itself forces a total defensive
05:40reorganisation from your opponents. The striker is then, as you would expect, supported by the two
05:45number eight. That gives you your attacking front five. And this is a really clever bit, just in the
05:50same way, the two forwards went from being narrow to being wide. The two fullbacks go from being wide
05:56to being narrow. So you've now got two inverted fullbacks and two wingers who have... It's the
06:04opposite of inverting. Outverted? Two outverted forwards. Doesn't sound right. Unverted. Xverted?
06:12I don't know what the word is. Either way, they have swapped. And I know, I know, you're the clever
06:16sort. You're looking at this going, it's just a two, three, five again. It's exactly the same shape
06:20they were in before. What's so clever about this? And the simple version is the amount of movement
06:26the players going from out to in all over the pitch will naturally create a lot more defensive
06:31instability, which may give you the sort of space you can then exploit. But you've got to think about
06:37the profile of player it now gives you in this position. Because previously when they've done this,
06:42this would be a Gundogan, this would be a Kovacic. When it was a box midfield, it would be a
06:47John
06:47Stones or somebody like that. Very good, very solid, very technical players. But now, in Nunes and Art
06:53Nori, or wherever you play in the fullback positions, you've got far more vertical, direct, i.e. will run
06:59in a straight line, players. And you saw against Juventus, they will make quick, unpredictable runs into any
07:06gaps in that forward line. Either offering a sixth player in the attack or rotating with like a Foden or
07:14a Shirky or whoever's in these two positions so that they drop deeper into places they're more
07:19comfortable being. And in the process, open up a gap for somebody to just run into. The second goal is
07:25obviously an own goal, but just look at what causes it. It is this front five, strung along, winger
07:31stretching the defence out. And Juventus will be very happy because they are 5v5 in this line.
07:38But Nunes, because he is a different profile of player to what Man City have previously usually had
07:42here, spots this gap, gambles on the run. Juventus do not go with him. And now, bang, look at that
07:49situation. You're just, you're completely in. And granted, yes, it's a defensive howler that puts it
07:53into the back of the net, but it's entirely caused. And I think I might be about to coin this
07:58term
07:59by this sixth man running tactic. Sixth man running. Like, next season is going to be a lot
08:06of fun for Man City. It's going to be messy as f**k, but it's going to be a lot of
08:10fun. And also,
08:11just one final point before I wrap up, Pep has developed a system here which I think suits both
08:17Haaland and Marmouche more or less exactly the same. They'll both enjoy the additional space and the
08:23players nearer to them in this phase. And they'll both enjoy players making runs outside of them and
08:28getting around the back in this phase. It's not a system that suits one of them more than it suits
08:33the other. It's something that suits them both in different ways. And you can tailor precisely what
08:38you're doing, depending on who's at the top end of the pitch. I don't mind saying it. I think Pep
08:42Guardiola is quite good at this. Anyway, yes, I'm absolutely gagging for an Aperol spritz here. So
08:47thank you very much for joining us here. You can subscribe to ACFC on YouTube. You can follow me
08:51across all the social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y. And if you're thinking, hey, this Club
08:55World Cup
08:55thing sounds like a laugh, right? You can watch every single game absolutely free on DAZN,
09:00our commercial sponsor friends, by clicking the link in the description below and just doing that.
09:06The games are on late as well, so the sun's usually gone in, which I really, really appreciate.
09:12Yeah, that's it. Bye.
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