This season, Manchester City have only tasted defeat four times, and only once in the league.
That was away at Liverpool, and the Champions League quarter finals have brought the two
teams together once more, with Liverpool having home advantage in the first leg.
Against Manchester City, with their vaunted attacking line up and prodigious ability to
keep the ball, many sides have chosen to sit deep and try to block.
By ceding possession and territory, the intention is to allow City to have the ball in areas
where it isn’t dangerous, and compress the space where it is.
When City attack, they tend to do so with four players pushed high and with width, with
one player, usually De Bruyne or David Silva, tucked in behind and in possession.
They move the ball quickly wide or as a through ball, with their movement, pace, and individual
skill causing problems.
By compressing the space, it should be easier to mark these attackers one on one, or even
double up out wide, while also closing the passer in possession.
In addition, sides who leave one player up the pitch will hope that, by allowing City’s
defensive line to push forwards, gaps are left in behind.
A quick vertical pass, and players rushing up on the counter, could in theory leave City
vulnerable on the counter, should Ederson fail to sweep in behind the back line and
the defence not manage to regain a decent position.
Liverpool, in the 4-3 win at Anfield in January, did not do this.
And they will hope that, once more, their intense pressing game and the ability of their
front three will be enough to gain an advantage heading into the second leg at the Etihad
Stadium.
Of course, pressing with intensity isn’t sufficient in itself; a team has to press
intelligently as well, as Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool do that to no little effect.
The front three of Liverpool employed a sort of triangle press when City were in possession
centrally at the back.
Firmino would push forwards as the tip of the press, while Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah
would take positions up diagonally behind.
While Firmino actively pressed the player in possession, the other two forwards were
marking passing lanes, rather than pressing players.
Ideally, this would either force the player in possession to go long or even back to Ederson,
or it would cause the full-backs to retreat, at which point Liverpool would press in the
wide spaces more actively, using the touchline as an additional defender.
This effect was compounded by Liverpool’s commitment to double pressing out wide where
possible.
If Mane was pressing Walker, he would be joined by Wijnaldum and even left-back Robertson.
Liverpool actively sought to hem City’s wider players in by the touchline.
This caused a compression of space across the pitch, which was noticeable especially
in the early stages of the game.
Liverpool’s team would shift horizontally and vertically to make City’s playing area
as small as possible: if the ball was on Liverpool’s left, Liverpool’s right sided players would
be far across enough to be level with the penalty spot, or even closer to the left touchline.
This gave City increasingly less space to play in, and even though there were acres
of space on the other touchline, the number of players in the way meant a switched ball
was impossible.
In the central areas, Liverpool tried to defend narrowly and make it hard for City to pass
through them.
This encouraged City to go wide, at which point Liverpool would press.
The other noticeable aspect was how Liverpool tried to close down Fernandinho whenever possible
with much of the work being done by Emre Can or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Fernandinho tended to look for a safety-first backwards pass, especially as his midfield
partners, De Bruyne and David Silva, tend to play higher up the pitch than a standard
midfield three would.
Whoever pressed Fernandinho would then immediately chase the pass backwards as well, putting
pressure on the receiver and hurrying their decision-making.
Of course, this sort of pressing is hard to sustain and defence alone does not win games.
Two things stuck out at Anfield, that allowed Liverpool to progress the ball in attack.
The first was how much Emre Can was able to find space in front of Liverpool’s back
line when they were in possession.
Because Fernandinho sat back in case Firmino dropped between the lines, City’s midfielders
tended to mark the passing lanes to their counterparts, leaving Aguero to press the
centre-backs.
Can was regularly in space, affording a good, regular passing option for defenders in possession.
Oxlade-Chamberlain, who excelled during the game, was also able to get forward a lot between
the lines.
The movement of Liverpool’s front three creates space for midfielders to push up into,
especially in the half spaces – Oxlade-Chamberlain especially was able to do this and posed a
constant threat.
This, combined with the trio of Firmino, Salah, and Mane meant that Liverpool had enough going
forwards to ensure all their hard defensive work didn’t go to waste.
Whether they can do the same in Champions League remains to be seen but if anyone knows
how to beat City, it’s Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool.