It wasn’t the tactics that blew away Chelsea on Sunday, said Pep Guardiola, just as Pep Guardiola revealed that Manchester City altered their high press at half-time to pen in their jittery hosts.
Jeremy Doku had gone on to pick Moises Caicedo’s pocket for the third goal, closing down from a more central area than his natural position. He did so on instruction, of course. City’s coaching staff mobbed each other in a circle on the touchline, suggesting they were all in on this.
As he so often does, Guardiola later sarcastically labelled himself a genius in the aftermath, categorising the result and second-half dominance as a victory for mentality and fortitude.
His version is that inside the dressing room, the players were basically told to liven up, given a jolt, and they did the rest. And there is something in that, City shoulders suddenly looser and operating with a certainty. The ball wasn’t heavy anymore. Rayan Cherki juggling and volleying an extraordinary pass down the line for Antoine Semenyo. That comes from man management.
But still, Guardiola did mention the high press. Maybe the emotional aspect of it did the bulk of the heavy lifting but the tweaks were the added percentage points. In this instance, they turned a two-goal lead into three. They meant that any Chelsea goal thereafter was a mere consolation that wouldn’t shift the circumstances of the game.
Guardiola in a microcosm. Obviously he is well aware of his genius, the guy isn’t an idiot. Publicly, he has always struggled to deal with that, uneasy when responding to praise, and reverts to sarcasm. Perhaps because some of the very same inquisitors will lampoon his overthinking after defeats.
Pep Guardiola has always played a cautious game around accepting praise for his tactical genius, but it is the reason why Manchester City are the masters of the title race
Sunday’s half-time tweaks revitalised City at Stamford Bridge and they wiped the floor with Chelsea after the break
City pressed high in the second half, with three players (Jeremy Doku, Rayan Cherki and Bernardo Silva) blocking Moises Caicedo’s route out of his own third
Doku and Cherki combined to dispossess Caicedo, with City alert as ever despite leading 2-0
Doku then raced forward to score past Robert Sanchez, killing any chance of a comeback for the hosts
Privately, he leans into it, spending hours at the whiteboard. If they win a seventh Premier League title under him – one that looked out of their grasp less than a month ago – then they will have done so with more tactical shifts than ever before. And that is saying something.
‘Throughout the years, you never saw City playing the same way,’ Bernardo Silva said. ‘We always change. That’s because he always thinks that if we don’t change, people will adapt and be able to control the way we play.
‘In terms of offensive concepts, he takes you to another level. He’s different from other managers. He’s obsessed, for good or bad he spends all his days thinking about what he can do to improve.’
This year, City have at times gone more direct in specific moments, ceding possession in a way they never had under Guardiola. They went with a diamond midfield press for a while, again something never trialled before. Two strikers, one striker. Silva and Rodri started play from goal-kicks at Leeds to counter the way Daniel Farke’s team went man-to-man.
Inverted full backs have occasionally made an appearance and the box midfield (two men vertically behind two others) became key when Doku and Savinho were injured, with Oscar Bobb unavailable in the weeks before heading to Fulham. Semenyo was seen as a central striker by suitors Chelsea, before choosing City in January, and Guardiola has utilised the Ghanaian there before reverting to natural width.
And it keeps going: a midfield shape resembling a parallelogram to exploit weaknesses and holes in the opposition. Two blockers in midfield to stop Arsenal playing out in the Carabao Cup final last month, that farcical passage when Kepa Arrizabalaga held onto the ball for what felt like an eternity.
Now here we are, with a fairly standard 4-2-3-1 that often looks suspiciously like a 4-4-2. It happened in the Treble campaign too, with Kevin De Bruyne pushed up alongside Erling Haaland in the way that Cherki is now.
That is just this season. It has been a campaign of experiments – which started at the Club World Cup – and the tactical influence of Pep Lijnders plays its part and so there are more twists than normal, especially with the raft of new signings.
New assistant coach Pep Lijnders has been another excellent tactical influence this season
City set up to stop Arsenal playing out from the back at Wembley in last month’s Carabao Cup final – and unless Mikel Arteta finds a new way of playing, Sunday could go the same way
Yet the constant evolution is what sets Guardiola apart. Every year is different, often imparted on the players to think about during pre-season, with many talking about how that keeps their minds fresh.
As we head towards the finish line of a mindboggling tenure at the Etihad Stadium, it is pertinent to highlight the absolute devotion to not standing still, refusing to accept the idea that nobody will figure them out. Almost a paranoia – and half of his ideas will centre on the fear of transitions. The man is without equal.
It is why, in the earlier years, both full backs would come inside, to prevent an overload in the middle of the pitch. They changed to three centre backs in build-up play (Kyle Walker moving inside).
There have been the false nines, somewhat forced upon him by not signing a striker after Sergio Aguero’s persistent injuries and eventual departure.
Even with Aguero, there were changes. ‘Sergio was not the incredible high-press player but he tried his best and all I ask is that,’ Guardiola said at Stamford Bridge when asked about Cherki. ‘Do your best and you can do it because he has another quality.’
City needed to find a way to mitigate that lack of aptitude, reaching 100 points and doing the domestic Treble in the process. One year brought a 4-1-5 formation to counter opponents who were sitting in with a low block.
‘It’s always finding a balance that is not easy because you never know how deep a team is going to defend,’ Silva said. ‘He always tries to think about these things and guess.
‘The way we played against Bournemouth (in November) with our full backs (Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly) being the only ones wide, we started trying that last season. We have a lot of ways we can play and that he created for this team. In a way they all work, depending on our opponents.’
Rayan Cherki has come alive in the second half of the season, and is being utilised in a role similar to that of Kevin De Bruyne in the Treble season
Guardiola is the master of adaptation and tactical shifts to keep his team fresh, something that Mikel Arteta (left) will have to learn to finally get his Arsenal team over the line
That is the criticism Arsenal supporters are levelling at Mikel Arteta during another title run-in that is bringing the worst out of them, with opponents having worked them out in the last few months and able to shut down their build-up play.
Guardiola said at the weekend that he knows Arteta perfectly, and knows there will be adjustments when these two face off in the potential title decider on Sunday, but the masses are left wondering if there is a coaching victory in Arteta’s locker.
City and Arsenal have both spent fortunes on these teams. The Gunners have been building to end two decades away from the spotlight, should be way ahead in their development and ready – finally – to lift the big one again.
Guardiola is using this, talking up his ‘underdogs’ against ‘the best in Europe’ but the protagonist stood in the dugout evens that up.
