Pep Guardiola's Manchester City shall pass, always!
ET CONTRIBUTORS|
Dec 04, 2017, 11.46 PM IST
By Dileep Premachandran
It was like watching iron filings in the path of a gigantic magnet.
Whenever Manchester City had the ball, which was a whopping 77 per cent of the time, West Ham defended with two banks of four. Often, these eight men were on the periphery of their own penalty box, such was City’s dominance. But West Ham defended tigerishly, and it took City 57 minutes to breach the barrier, through the unlikely figure of Nicolas Otamendi.
Once they fell behind, near the end of the first half, City didn’t panic.
Pep Guardiola and his players have such faith in their method that they stick to it no matter what the score.
As the second half minutes ticked away with West Ham clinging on for a point, there was no temptation to lump balls into the box, no visible Plan B. Instead, the City magnet moved the eight iron filings this way and that.
Sometimes, the ball would be shifted to Raheem Sterling on the right of the attacking three. From there, it would be switched to Leroy Sane on the left. In the middle of the park, Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva swapped positions routinely. When de Bruyne went forward, Silva would sit in the deep-lying ‘quarterback’ position.
The secret of City’s success has been the fluidity with which they switch positions and roles. That was best illustrated during the decisive goal, in the 83rd minute. Earlier in the season, de Bruyne scored some crucial goals as Silva manipulated play from deep. This time, it was Silva that made a clever run right through the heart of the defence as West Ham gave de Bruyne the split second he needed.
The pass, like a pitching wedge on the golf course, was inevitably perfect.
Silva, who’s never been a prolific goal-scorer, stretched so far that he was already falling on his backside by the time the neat leftfoot deflection found the corner of the net. After a far from vintage performance, City had their win, even if lapses at the back drove Guardiola to clenched-fist rage before the final whistle.
In the space of seven days, City have taken six points in the final minutes of games. Each time, City stayed true to their principles, subjecting the opposition to death by a thousand passes.
The numbers are so instructive. De Bruyne and Silva lead the league with eight assists apiece. The brilliant Sane, who has also scored six times, is in third place with six. Four of the five players who have completed the most passes wear City’s sky blue. Leading the way is Otamendi (1,256), just to illustrate how City build from the back.
But what Huddersfield, Southampton and West Ham, three teams that went into the games with damage control uppermost on their minds, have shown is how City can be contained.
With Paul Pogba suspended for the Manchester derby next Sunday, you can be certain that Jose Mourinho will not adopt a gung-ho approach. Teams that do so have usually found that City, like love in the Joy Division song of that time, ‘will tear us apart’.
Ian Curtis, the Joy Division frontman, watched City win the title as a 12-year-old, and was so obsessed with the club that prospective houses were judged on their distance from Maine Road, where the club used to play then.
By the time he killed himself in 1980, they had gone into decline.
For decades, City fans specialised in gallows humor. Now, with Guardiola having masterminded almost the perfect start to a season, it’s their opponents that must seek solace in wit and absurdity.
It was like watching iron filings in the path of a gigantic magnet.
Whenever Manchester City had the ball, which was a whopping 77 per cent of the time, West Ham defended with two banks of four. Often, these eight men were on the periphery of their own penalty box, such was City’s dominance. But West Ham defended tigerishly, and it took City 57 minutes to breach the barrier, through the unlikely figure of Nicolas Otamendi.
Once they fell behind, near the end of the first half, City didn’t panic.
Pep Guardiola and his players have such faith in their method that they stick to it no matter what the score.
As the second half minutes ticked away with West Ham clinging on for a point, there was no temptation to lump balls into the box, no visible Plan B. Instead, the City magnet moved the eight iron filings this way and that.
Sometimes, the ball would be shifted to Raheem Sterling on the right of the attacking three. From there, it would be switched to Leroy Sane on the left. In the middle of the park, Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva swapped positions routinely. When de Bruyne went forward, Silva would sit in the deep-lying ‘quarterback’ position.
The secret of City’s success has been the fluidity with which they switch positions and roles. That was best illustrated during the decisive goal, in the 83rd minute. Earlier in the season, de Bruyne scored some crucial goals as Silva manipulated play from deep. This time, it was Silva that made a clever run right through the heart of the defence as West Ham gave de Bruyne the split second he needed.
The pass, like a pitching wedge on the golf course, was inevitably perfect.
Silva, who’s never been a prolific goal-scorer, stretched so far that he was already falling on his backside by the time the neat leftfoot deflection found the corner of the net. After a far from vintage performance, City had their win, even if lapses at the back drove Guardiola to clenched-fist rage before the final whistle.
In the space of seven days, City have taken six points in the final minutes of games. Each time, City stayed true to their principles, subjecting the opposition to death by a thousand passes.
The numbers are so instructive. De Bruyne and Silva lead the league with eight assists apiece. The brilliant Sane, who has also scored six times, is in third place with six. Four of the five players who have completed the most passes wear City’s sky blue. Leading the way is Otamendi (1,256), just to illustrate how City build from the back.
But what Huddersfield, Southampton and West Ham, three teams that went into the games with damage control uppermost on their minds, have shown is how City can be contained.
With Paul Pogba suspended for the Manchester derby next Sunday, you can be certain that Jose Mourinho will not adopt a gung-ho approach. Teams that do so have usually found that City, like love in the Joy Division song of that time, ‘will tear us apart’.
Ian Curtis, the Joy Division frontman, watched City win the title as a 12-year-old, and was so obsessed with the club that prospective houses were judged on their distance from Maine Road, where the club used to play then.
By the time he killed himself in 1980, they had gone into decline.
For decades, City fans specialised in gallows humor. Now, with Guardiola having masterminded almost the perfect start to a season, it’s their opponents that must seek solace in wit and absurdity.
