Man city 4-Tottenham 3 Tactical Analysis

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"Chokers" choke Manchester City to Death

17 April 2019 would be the most remembered and haunted night for Man City fans.It will also be remembered for the "Chokers" aka Tottenham Hotspurs resilience and punching above their weight defeating Man city at their own home in their own game in the second leg of the Quarter Final of the Champions League.  

Man city's manager Pep Guardiola who revolutionized the game with his TIKI-TAKA tactics at Barcelona fears only 3 things in football

1)Barcelona team which he created

2)Jurggen Klop

3)Marcelo Bielsa and His Philosophy 

And one man with Bielsa Philosophy is Tottenham's manager Mauricio Pochettino

Its no secret that Pep is a fan of Tottenhams physicality and his first defeat in the premier league also came to Pochettino's spurs,a 2-0 defeat at Wembly.

Tottenham out performed city in the first leg at White Hart Lane winning the fixture 1-0 both tactically and by score.

Lets look at the lineups of both the teams in this match

Mancity lined up in their regular 4-3-3.They made 4 changes from the team that played the away leg in wembly

Vinceent kompany and Benjamin Mendy started in defence in the place of Nicolas Otamendi and Fabian Delph in defence.Iklay Gundogan started as a deep lying play maker in the place of Fernandinho and Bernado Silva was back in the team in the place of Riyad Mahrez

Spurs Line up

Tottenham stared with their same defensive set up as last week.They made two changes upfront,Victor Wanyama started in the place of Harry Winks and Lucaas Moura started in the place of Harry Kane both out due to injuries.

Start of the game

Man city started as 4-3-3 but were playing 4-2-4 during attack with full backs inverting in midfield and De Bruyne and Gundogan staying as wide as possible.

City did this to bypass spurs high press in the centre and looked to exploit the wide spaces.All of the 4 goals of city in this match came from wings rather than the centre showing how effective this tactic was.

This tactic easily eliminated Tottenhams midfield with both defensive mid fielders,Sissoko and Wanyama having to face baptism of fire from city's attack.

Spurs had lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with Midfield double pivot of Wanyama and Sissoko patroling the space behind the spurs attack line.Erikson,the creative midfielder in spurs battalion played just behind to Son Hueng Min while Moura and Ali drifted freely with Ali more often drifting from his right wing position.Son usually drifted wide to the left wing,from where his second goal came from.

Build Up To First Goal

As you can see,de Bruyne is playing wide and Aguero dropping deep in midfield to link up play.

Sterling remained wide but the posit on of David Silva in the half space meant Tripper was forced into 2v1 situation.He decided to leave sterling and city were successful in forcing Spurs defence narrow and exploit wide spaces behind their full backs.

As you can see,Aguero dropped deep to receive the ball played a 1-2 with de -Bruyne.David Silva was taking an inside run which forced tripper narrow leaving Sterling in acres of space.

Result- Sterlings receives the ball in that acre of space,cuts in and shoots.GOAL city leads within 4 minutes and now it seems a routine win for City.

Defensive Fragility

Manchester City had 66% possession in the game.As city Dominated possession,Tottenham mostly liked to hit city on counter which helped them to get two early goals in Quick successions.

Tottenham mostly attacked thorough central areas as City had shifted both its midfielders wide leaving massive space in the centre for spurs to exploit.

As you can see in the first picture,Tottenham have forced City's defence narrow leaving Danny Rose with acres of space.

Tottenham won position high up the pitch and passed it to Moura.After a 1 2 with Moura,Erikson passes the ball.A bad defensive clearance by Laporte lands the ball in Sons feet.He stings city back with a cheeky low finish under the leg of Ederson.Game on...

Second Goal for Spurs

A poor first touch from Laporte gifted Moura the chance to hit city in the break.City now had a 2v1 the back with Moura running away from Gundogan.Moura's pace was a nightmare for aging Kompany.On the left son has all the time and space in the world to get his hair down,hit the pub at 12,see  the night out with a sheila and come back to score for Tottenham.

Walker is left in a 2v1 position with both Ali and Son to look after.City's defence is in shatters.Erikson passes the ball to Son,he tees himself up with his first touch and shoots a delicacy in the left corner.

Despite the early lead of Spurs,City didn't wither under the pressure that spurs had created with a 3 goal cushion due to two away goals.City now needed 3 goals to win the tie and reach the semifinal of Champions League.

City's second goal and the start of their dominance on the game

Aguero dropping deep to receive the ball and link up play.Bernado Silva maintains his width on the left side as de-Bruyne has forced Rose Narrow.Aguero paases the ball to Bernado Silva in that space

As you can clearly see Rose is left in a 2v1 situation with de Bruyne and Silva to mark.He chooses the former and completely loses bernado who fires City's second and fourth goal of the match within 11 minutes.

The problem with Spurs defence was neither Moura nor Ali were tracking back to help Rose and Tripper in defence.This made it easy for Man city to slice through spurs defence.

City flying high and Spurs having a free fall

Man city scored their third goal of the game in the similar manner to that of the first two.

Bernado is wide at left receives the ball from de Bruyne.As you can see Moura is high up the pitch and not tracking back to help Rose.

The Midfield of Spurs is also caught dozing off and City have a clear 4v4 against Spurs in the final third.A freekick taken quickly by de bruyne,a quick 1 2 with Gundogan.He then passes the ball to Bernado into that space as i had shown you above.de Bryune makes an overlapping run and sends a cut back to Sterling who fires the ball home from a close range.

They now need just one more goal to be in the driving seat for the tie

City Leads the tie

In the 58 minute City's target man Aguero rifled the ball behind Lorris for the 4 goal of city for the night.This goal took city up 4-3 on aggregate.

The build up for this goal was slightly different.In the first half spurs played with a compact low block not allowing any of citys attack through the centre of the field by maintaining a narrow gap between its defence and midfield.But as Spurs started to tire out,this gap widened,with Sissoko out injured at 41 minutes.

The tactical substitution in his place,Fernando Llorente is a striker so spurs had pushed Dele Ali back to midfield from right wing tasked with the job of marking de -Bruyne between the lines.

But Ali completely missed de bruyne's run as you can see him running with the ball in the above picture between the lines with the Belgian slipping past the Tottenhams defence before assissting Aguero for the Goal.A clear beauty from the Belgian International.

It was after this goal that Pochettino made some tactical changes.Ali and Moura started tracking back to help cope 2v1 situation at the wings.

This played dividends in the 73 minute when sub Fernando Llorente tucked in a corner from a close range.It appeared that llorente had used his hand but VAR clearly showed that the ball hit Llorente's hip before going in.

With spurs scoring again city needed an extra goal in 20 odd minutes to proceed in the semi final.

Leory Sane's introduction at 84 minutes

Guardiola subbed in Sane in the 84 minute to score the vital the goal city needed.This introduction quickly changed the way city lined up.City shifted to more of a back 3 as Sane was substituted for Benjamin Mendy who played as a left back.Pep also introduced Sane as Pochettino had made a tactical substitution by subbing in defensive midfielder Ben Davies for LUcas Moura.

In the 86 minute sane created a half chance for Gundogan which he fired agonizingly wide from a close range.To deal with Sane both Son and Llorente tracked back causing spurs to fall back in a low block by parking the bus.

An injury time goal of Raheem Sterling was ruled out as Aguero was found to be offside in the build up.Finally 5 minutes of Injury time ended and Spur's survived the match by the skin of their teeth

Conclusion

Man City played very brilliantly in this game,the reason why the lost were due to individual defensive errors by Laporte.Gurdiola's tactics were a beauty to watch.Gaurdiola Played Gundogan in this match instead of Fernandinho as he was easily nullified by Spurs in the first leg.Due to this city could not move the ball through the centre and lacked width at the flanks.

This game saw Man City building through the wings and easily bypassing spurs press in the centre.This tactic helped city to score 4 goals but it also stung them back as they were exposed on counter attacks with both city's midfielders David Silva and Kevin de Bryune high and wide up the pitch.

Tottenham had their up and downs in the game but it was their resilience that would be remembered.They were not the best side in the game but they scored goals when it mattered the most.Spurs entered the champions league semifinal after a gap of 52 years.

Pochettino rightly described his Players as "Heros".

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