Retro tactical analysis: Manchester City 2-1 Liverpool, 03/01/2019, Premier League 18/19
This game was seen as by many as one of the best Premier League games in recent memory
In what proved to be the deciding game for the 2018/19 Premier League title, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City emerged victorious over Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool. Here’s how events unfolded at the Etihad stadium:
Starting line-ups:
Pep Guardiola opted for Aymeric Laporte at left back and Danilo at right back at the expense of Kyle Walker, joining John Stones and Vincent Kompany in the back line. With Kevin de Bruyne declared not fit enough to start, Bernardo and David Silva played as the high 8s alongside Fernandinho in midfield, while their front 3 consisted of Leroy Sané, Sergio Agüero and Raheem Sterling.
For Liverpool, Dejan Lovren started in the absence of Joe Gomez at center back, joining Virgil van Dijk and full backs Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold in the back line. James Milner started ahead of Fabinho in midfield alongside Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum. In attack, the notorious front 3 of Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino and Mohammed Salah were an obvious choice for the German head coach.
City spent the majority of the first half in possession in search of the opening goal, while Liverpool were more patient in their approach, adopting a mid to high press that would convert into a mid block once their first line was bypassed. Their pressing scheme looked like the following:
The full backs would stay attached to the wingers. In midfield, Henderson would man mark Bernardo Silva who would be the player responsible to drop deep and help with building-up. Wijnaldum stayed attached to David Silva, while Milner had a free role and would step up to press if City tried to build up from the right side.
The key part of the approach was the front 3, who stayed compact and were very active in the press. Mané and Salah hovered in the channels between the center backs and the full backs, while Firmino had the responsibility to step up to the CBs when needed, at the same time maintaining a shadow-cover on Fernandinho. The latter was very successful as it kept the holding midfielder from getting heavily involved in the build-up.
Liverpool’s front 3 pressing
The main aim of the press was to force the build-up wide, as City’s players would be restricted by the touchline and mainly towards the right, which would act as a trigger for Milner to step up and press Danilo. As mentioned above, Pep’s answer to this issue was dropping Bernardo Silva deep towards the right half-space to help with ball progression. His team found success at times by playing more directly away from the right side, linking up play with another dropping player like Aguero or David Silva.
Bernardo drops deep in the build-up, Milner steps up to press
When City managed to break from their own third, they faced a very compact Liverpool middle 3, which shielded the back 4 and made it really hard to find success by attacking through the middle.
This meant that City turned to their trademark wide overloads, especially from the left side of the pitch. In order for this to happen, Agüero would usually lurk around the left half-space and would drop deep in order to link up play and create a 3v2 numerical advantage along with the most advanced midfielder David Silva and the left winger Sané.
Aguero drops deep towards the left to create an overload
Using this approach, City occasionally managed to break into Liverpool’s third of the pitch. In order to prevent these left overloads from happening, Klopp responded by instructing his compact middle 3 to shift across to the left and close the space in-between the lines and also the front 3 to drop back and cover the remaining unmarked players.
As a result, the right wing was left severely under-loaded. City’s left sided players would look to switch the play towards the right, in order to get Sterling isolated 1v1 against Robertson.
City managed to break the deadlock in the 40th minute, when a simple yet effective pattern lead to the attack that concluded with Agüero’s opener. Laporte had possession in the left wing, while David Silva had moved to forward to pin the right center back Lovren.
This movement created plenty of space for Sané, who was already in Alexander-Arnold’s blind side. Laporte played him in with a chipped through ball and City managed to break through behind Liverpool’s defensive line. A few seconds later, Aguero blasted the ball between Alisson and the near post, right in the top corner.
Now let’s look at what happened when Liverpool were in possession of the ball. While at times they attempted to progress by playing more directly, the majority of the time they tried to play out from the back. City adopted a high press, however different from their usual 4-4-2 structure. This time it looked more like a 4-1-3-2:
David Silva joined Agüero in pressing the center backs, while Sané and Sterling stayed in a narrow position simultaneously covering the full backs and the wide central midfielders. Bernardo man marked Henderson who stayed deep to build a triangle to help with ball circulation. Fernandinho guarded Firmino’s dropping false 9 movements, while the full backs stayed deep and narrow, in order to stay attached to Mané and Salah. Once again, the goal was to force the ball wide. When that happened, the whole front 5 structure of City would shift across towards the ball in order to build a ‘cage’ around the Liverpool players, contained by the touchline, and so cause turnovers.
City forwards forcing Liverpool wide with their press
Klopp’s response was to create a back 3 by dropping Wijnaldum alongside the center backs, in order to help with the numbers and also push up the full backs higher and wider. Furthermore, at times Firmino also dropped to the midfield to assist ball progression.
In the 56th minute, Klopp decided to shake things up with a move that proved fruitful. Fabinho a natural defensive midfielder came on in place of Milner and allowed Liverpool to switch to 4-2-3-1 structure, with a double pivot consisting of the Brazilian and Jordan Henderson. Mané and Wijnaldum occupied the wings, Firmino dropped to a no. 10 role and Salah played as the lone center forward. The double pivot helped Liverpool in ball progression as City surrendered possession with a 1 goal lead and also, Firmino joined Salah in a more intense press of the center backs.
This change of shape and personnel, was the most important factor in Liverpool’s equalizer in the 64th minute. In the beginning of the attack, Liverpool transitioned quickly to City’s third, due to the wingers’ (Wijnaldum & Mané) narrow dropping movement and link-up.
In addition, the narrow positioning of the wingers in this structure, allowed Liverpool’s arguably most dangerous threat, their full backs, plenty of space to move forward in. This was possible also due to the added protection that the newly introduced double pivot provided.
Later in the move, the forth forward helped Liverpool have more numbers in the box and so Robertson moved in that space to get on the end of a great cross by Alexander-Arnold. Robertson found Firmino, who converted in an open net to make it 1-1.
Similar to a game of chess, Guardiola instantly responded to Klopp’s move, by bringing on Gündogan in place of David Silva, also creating a double pivot with Fernandinho. That helped defensively, as well as acting as a solution to bypass the press of the Liverpool front two.
This move also allowed Bernardo Silva the freedom to move up in a further advanced position centrally, more often than not occupying one of the center backs rather than Henderson. This helped create more space for Sterling, a factor which was seen in City’s winning goal in the 72nd minute. A long ball was played into Sterling, Bernardo pinned Lovren, creating the space for the English winger to run into the channel, who was able to dribble diagonally and play in Sané who made it 2-1 with a deft finish.
After the third goal, City surrendered possession and dropped in a 4-5-1 block, looking to attack on the counter. Liverpool ultimately were unable to find a way through.
Conclusion:
In a fascinating tactical battle, Manchester City narrowly managed to grab the 3 points in a game decided by fine margins. Given the final league table, Pep Guardiola’s win against Jürgen Klopp was the most important game of the Premier League season.
Written by Nikolaos Stephanatos (@ncstef16)
