- 9 hours ago
Manchester City's title challenge was just minutes away from being over, but late goals from Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva have kept them alive. What's more, Pep Guardiola found 2 vital goals without Phil Foden on the pitch. Adam Clery looks at how an unusually physical line-up made Man City a completely different animal, and ultimately forced Liverpool into a mistake that turned the game.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam McCleary Football Channel, and yes, okay, Arsenal are probably still going to win
00:06the league, but you didn't think Pep Guardiola was just gonna go away, did you?
00:13This was a Manchester City-Liverpool game quite unlike any other Manchester City-Liverpool game we have ever seen, so
00:19let me show you how this lot went and won it right after it looked like they might have gone
00:26and lost it.
00:29Now as ever, shouts and indeed hugs to our good data pals at FopMob, we'll be using various bits and
00:35bobs from them across the video, but they've also got like live scores, fixtures, stats, all that really good stuff
00:40that you can have on your phone, just like I have by clicking the link in the description. We love
00:46them.
00:46Now, I'm gonna show you something from the very start of the game that had the commentators going absolutely spare
00:52at the time, but in hindsight showed you everything about what Guardiola was trying to do, and why they ultimately
00:59ended up winning.
00:59So Marguerite has the ball in the right corner, he is getting pressed, he is in trouble. Pretty much a
01:05nightmare scenario to be in when your away trip to Anfield is currently not even as long as ABBA's Dancing
01:12Queen.
01:13Because if you just look at that there, the studio version of that is 3 minutes 50, and no, I
01:17don't know why I know that.
01:19Anyway though, Marguerite's absolutely class, isn't he? So he gets out of it with this weirdly violent side foot across
01:24to Kushinov.
01:25He just about gets it under control, he has no pressure on him, and he can now comfortably walk that
01:31out of the danger area and up the pitch.
01:34Which he does, except no, also he doesn't, because weirdly he just gives it back to Rodri, who gives it
01:39back to Donnarumma, and rather than getting out,
01:42they wind up back here, getting pressed on their own goal line, then closed down near their own touchline,
01:49lose the ball on the edge of their own box, and have to scramble the cup back away to stop
01:55Salah getting a tap in.
01:56Now that does, admittedly, look absolutely mad, and Dragon's Den's Gary Neville was doing his nutting, trying to work out
02:04why they weren't just clearing their lines.
02:07But as the game wore on, it became apparent that this, and this, and this, were exactly what Guardiola had
02:15instructed them to do with the ball at the back.
02:18Now obviously, your immediate follow-up to that is going to be, well, why?
02:23And to answer it, simply look at the team he selected.
02:26In fact, very quickly, the early team sheets had them set up like this, which is of course both wrong
02:32and stupid,
02:33and when asked about using both Marmoosh and Haaland together in the pre-match interview, Pep sort of like, zipped
02:39himself up and just said,
02:41You will see. You will see. I can't do a Pep.
02:44And I did think that was a little bit strange at the time, because Pep is a man, remember,
02:49who absolutely loves to belittle Patrick Davison by giving him an answer he doesn't think he'd be able to understand.
02:56So to pass up an open goal like that told you immediately, he's going to do something mad.
03:01And technically, it was still a 4-3-3 like this, but what you had was Haaland and Marmoosh,
03:06both playing right up against the defence, looking to get in behind,
03:09with Semenyo sort of floating the entire width of the pitch in between them.
03:13And then from there, you had O'Reilly and Silva nominally wide,
03:17but trying to stay as close as they could to this central three to feed the ball to them.
03:22And the thing is, this is a very weird team.
03:25Like, there's no Shirky, there's no Foden, there's no Rinders, there's no Rico Lewis.
03:29Like, it's very un-City, provided you still think of them as like a team of small technical passing nerds,
03:38which of course they haven't been for a number of years now.
03:40It looks really transitional, it looks really athletic, and in fact,
03:44besides maybe Bernardo Silva and Nico O'Reilly,
03:48there's not a single player in this team who you would describe as a better footballer
03:54than they are a physical specimen.
03:56And yes, that is the weirdest thing I've ever said.
03:59But you don't look at this XI and think patient build-up play,
04:03retaining possession, probing for an opening.
04:05You think direct, in your face, run really hard and then kick it even harder.
04:11So you go back to these moments here and you realise this isn't a team
04:14holding onto the ball for too long and making a mistake not getting rid of it.
04:18It's a team trying to bait Liverpool as far up the pitch as they possibly can
04:22so that there's even more room to go over the top or through them.
04:26Like the very cutback that is nearly a goal for Salah, they get it back in the corner
04:31and within two passes, they're into Liverpool's final third.
04:34Now they give it away here, the pass isn't very good, but they immediately counter-press,
04:38they force a mistake, and by the time Semenyo blazes it over the bar,
04:43look what we've got here.
04:45Like all three of the strikers are central, absolutely zero width.
04:49No thought or ability to play it out into the flanks to find a gap in Liverpool's defence.
04:56They're just going for it.
04:58And that is really rare.
05:00Like to see Pep Guardiola set up with a side that has virtually no attacking width.
05:05Like they attempted five crosses, five in this entire match, right?
05:12And for context, Newcastle are currently averaging 25 per match.
05:17Man City are averaging 14.
05:19But they set absolutely everything up to go through the very centre of the pitch.
05:23And then by drawing Liverpool onto them, they would go over the top or just into this central area
05:29where you now had between three and six players all contesting the first and second balls.
05:34And yes, you're right, not unlike how Man United beat Liverpool at Anfield earlier in the season
05:41by lining all of these players up against the back four and going long into them
05:45to either win the headers or more likely just win the knockdowns.
05:49Exactly like that, in fact.
05:51Now just with the insane added element of playing it across the face of your own goal.
05:55Now sometimes, right, what's hard about this job is being able to differentiate
06:01between what was planned out by the manager in advance because he's a genius
06:05and what simply just happened because in football stuff just happens.
06:11They're very rarely the same thing.
06:13But as you saw this game go on, you saw the pattern emerging time and time and time and time
06:20and time again.
06:21You can see here, when Liverpool start pressing, it slowly works back to Donnarumma
06:25who waits, he invites the pressure, then he goes long into Haaland
06:29who's peeled off to the right, flicks it on and Semenyo tries to run beyond him.
06:34Then, a few minutes later, and you won't believe this,
06:38when Liverpool start pressing, it slowly works back to Donnarumma
06:41who waits, invites the pressure, then goes long into Haaland
06:44who's peeled off to the right, flicks it on and Semenyo tries to run beyond him.
06:49In fact, if you want a real laugh, have a look at Donnarumma's pass map
06:53from this entire game of football.
06:57Now yes, you're right, I have done it upside down, sorry about that,
07:00but just go with me here.
07:01I know he's not there for his neat interplay, but still, this is very funny
07:07because every single pass is either straight down the throat of Liverpool
07:12to get the forwards up against the centre-backs,
07:14or it's into these absolutely crazy areas where they are trying to invite even more pressure.
07:22Almost never does he just give the ball to a defender or a midfielder who is in front of him.
07:27Now don't get me wrong, it is nice sometimes when the data challenges
07:31what it is you thought you saw with your eyes,
07:33but what's even better than that is when it confirms exactly what you thought you saw with your eyes.
07:38This is a man who is either trying to invite the pressure on
07:41or go immediately over the top of it.
07:44I like this.
07:45So yes, you go back to these moments at the very start of the video
07:49and then you look at all of this again
07:51and then you remember Pep Guardiola saying,
07:54you will see and, well, you did see.
07:58Even if, just like Gary Neville, you could not see it at the time.
08:01Well, thanks to Mark Statz, who I tell absolutely anybody who will listen is absolutely class.
08:06These are all the giveaways from both teams in their own sort of like dangerous areas.
08:14These are Manchester City's, these are Liverpool's.
08:16And weirdly, right, they have the exact same number of giveaways, right?
08:21Because even though Man City did set up to be really physical and really direct,
08:25Liverpool are no mugs.
08:27They matched them quite well at this as the game went on
08:29and even started doing the same thing back to them in the second half,
08:33going right over the top of Man City's press instead of trying to play through it.
08:37But while you cannot separate them numerically, right,
08:40the stars here, if you can see those, they represent a loss of possession.
08:45So getting tackled, losing a ground jewel, losing a header,
08:48just giving the ball away with a bad pass.
08:50However you want to lose the ball, right,
08:52the stars represent one of those losses
08:54that then immediately led to the other team having a shot.
09:00Man City did that to Liverpool eight times.
09:03Liverpool only did it once.
09:06So time and time again, from Silva in the second minute to Shirky in the 90th,
09:10Man City would win it or win it back high
09:12and then try to find one of the forwards looking to get in behind.
09:17Never any wide options or thoughts about recycling possession
09:20just going direct and going direct as directly as they could.
09:26And I know exactly what you're thinking about.
09:28Well, how does that then win them the game, Adam?
09:31Because unless I'm remembering it wrong, unless I'm hit my head,
09:34neither of the goals come from situations like that.
09:37Well, because this was so clearly the game plan,
09:40it forced Arna Slott into making a mistake.
09:44And if you look at the duels in this game,
09:46Liverpool were actually competing pretty well.
09:48The second balls were a bit of a problem, sure,
09:50but when the ball was on the ground,
09:52they were mixing it with Man City
09:53and actually just shading it on the ground duels.
09:57But the problem is that when the ball was in the air,
09:59Man City were absolutely killing them.
10:02They won 20 out of 28 aerial duels in this game.
10:06And as you saw before with those Haaland flick-ons,
10:09they could not live with that.
10:11So after going in front,
10:12Slott decided to remove all this space in behind
10:15by not pressing and sitting incredibly deep.
10:18Just have a look at the moment
10:20before the cross comes in for the equaliser.
10:22Like, you could throw a dishcloth,
10:23admittedly an absolutely massive one,
10:25over the entire Liverpool XI.
10:27And I get it seems like a good idea
10:29to cut off all that space in behind
10:32to stop them playing into it.
10:33But when you are losing 71% of all the balls in the air,
10:38why would you move those challengers
10:40from the halfway line where they'd previously been
10:43to literally into your own box?
10:46I get the vision, Arna, truly I do.
10:48But if you want that to work,
10:50you cannot allow Haaland to just go
10:52and stand on Sabaslai like that.
10:55I know it's Canati that challenges him in the air,
10:57but by pinning him,
10:58he's put the offside line here
11:00and then headed into it.
11:02So, bang, equaliser.
11:04And then, obviously, realising his error
11:05and telling him to step out a bit,
11:07what happens then?
11:08Well, you get caught leaving this amount of space in behind
11:11and these two players get caught ball-watching
11:14instead of tracking a one-two
11:16and bang, penalty, bang, winning goal.
11:19This is going to sound really sad,
11:21but I actually can't stop looking at this still image.
11:24You've got a 3v3 here, 3v3 here,
11:27and you probably would have 3v3 here,
11:28but, obviously, Arna Slott wants to have an extra man
11:31at all times at the back.
11:33So, maybe that's football's new big tactical innovation,
11:38just turning it into loads of mini-games
11:42all over the pitch.
11:44That'd be weird.
11:45But, anyway, yes, I found Pep Guardiola's game plan
11:47for this to be very, very, very, very interesting,
11:51although, weirdly, it only won them the game indirectly.
11:54Like, none of these moments got them a goal,
11:56but when Arna Slott attempted to counteract it,
11:59it inadvertently made the whole thing more effective
12:02and worked better.
12:03Strange one.
12:04And, um, if you're looking for any sort of comment whatsoever
12:07about that fourth goal that wasn't a goal
12:10with the open goal and the pullback and the advantage
12:12and the dogzo and the VAR and the red card
12:15and all of that, right?
12:17Scrap it. Scrap it. Scrap it right now.
12:19Get rid of it all immediately.
12:21I don't, I don't care anymore.
12:23It was absolutely correct.
12:24That is a good use of the system
12:27and it should, no, I've counted
12:29and it should have been a red card
12:30and they've done it, they've done it all correct,
12:32but just listening to Craig Pawson's little voice break
12:36when he had to announce it,
12:38that's, that's not what I'm here for.
12:40I don't, I don't care anymore.
12:42This here, this is the only way
12:44you should be allowing nerds to ruin football.
12:47Not that.
12:48But anyway, on that slightly unhinged ending note,
12:50that is the end of the videos.
12:52Thank you very much for joining us.
12:53If you're a Liverpool or a Manchester City fan,
12:54let us know in the comments down below.
12:55What did you think of the game?
12:57Liverpool, did you got more of it than that?
12:59Did you like how Slott made them more defensive?
13:01Did you think that would work?
13:02Is it on him and Man City fans?
13:04Guardiola, super genius.
13:05You're back in the title race.
13:06I would like to know how you,
13:10specifically you, feel about all of it
13:11and no doubt there will be Arsenal fans
13:13watching this video
13:13because this is very relevant to them.
13:16So let me know how you feel as well
13:17because bye, Jingo.
13:20It'll be worse next week.
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13:41It's really dragging on now
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13:45But until next time,
13:47we've got loads of fun stuff
13:48coming for you this week.
13:50SCR,
13:51but you can't wait to learn about that.
13:52I've been Adam Cleary.
13:53This has been ACFC.
13:54I'll see you next time.
13:56Bye.
13:57Ow.
13:57Bye.
13:58Bye.
13:58Bye.
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