City were bombarding Arsenal with long shots from outside the box in the second half. The back four had a total of 14 shots, with Ruben Dias camping centrally looking for those shots. Question is, why not put Foden to camp outside the box, since he can deliver screamers in the top corner?
by Fotbalsimplu
28 comments
Genuinely baffling that Dias was so prominent on the ball, just sub him off ffs
This match will have Guardiola come up with new tactics to address challenges against park the bus teams. City have unfinished business with the bottlejobs.
Watching Dias try to do a Vinny impression was painful
Watching him shoot with his weak foot was even more painful
Watching him miss even more with his stronger foot was most painful
The whole line up in the second half was a bit confusing. Why were Walker, Dias, Akanji & Gvardiol all playing and defending nobody? And then Kova as well. Subbed off our two best dribblers and then brought on Stones, who tbf got the winner but I wasn’t 100% sure what the plan was.
It was bizarre that neither Stones nor Gvardiol were put centrally as they are miles ahead of Dias on the ball.
Given Arsenal had zero intent to attack you could he taken off Dias for Foden and played him there with no issue.
I know Pep all about control, but why didn’t the players themselves on the pitch try to shake things up/switch positioning – Ruben, Manu, Mateo, & Kyle making 273 passes around the box & 15+ shots was obv not working!!
But .02 xG for Califiori’s goal!!
It is a bit funny that in all the justified uproar about how his goal happened, his actually incredible shot/goal on his 1st start, and in such an important match, has been totally overshadowed. Oh well, ha.
I was really mad how our long range shooter was ruben walker and kova.
They pass each other then take a shaky touch and shoot the ball into the moon every time
They have to learn from this match
Our set piece defence was so bad and after the first attempt we are not improved at all and lead to 2nd goal.
Walker against low block has no influence at all he was a burden actually.
We need someone who can cross the ball dangerously into the box at least give a chaos instead playing save every time.
We can’t playing shit like this every time we face a solid low block with good counter attacks.
At the time I was thinking Pep might do something radical by swapping the defence and midfield around, so you have Phil, Gundo and Kova on the edge then Dias and Akanji along their back line to make it 3 big guys up top lol. Then you’d have more arial threat from crosses too
In hindsight it might’ve been a good shout and I don’t think we got in behind with out swinging crosses as much as we could’ve
(by behind I mean little layoffs to the wide man to whip one one in. as behind their back line were the cameras lol)
If you camped Foden in the position of Dias then Arsenal would have changed shape to close down Foden. They were at that time overwhelmed in the box which meant they couldn’t close down Diaz as quick as they would have liked. If you just take Diaz off you unbalance the defence. When he eventually went off we had cover for the defence. There is always a danger even when a team parks the bus like Arsenal did that they get a break and you need cover for that. As I said on another post the thing that confuses me is that Arsenal didn’t stick one player on the half way line because that takes at least one of ours.
why gvardiol wasn’t moved centrally still baffles me. the amount of times dias received the ball in an optimal screamer position was just sad to witness especially imagining gvardiol or foden on the end of that.
You are not the only one who thought this way. Esteemed Kompany was literally tearing his hair out for foden to do this instead of dias and walker.
Pep really had no idea what to do for a large portion of that 2nd half. Sort of understandable, you don’t expect to be in that situation, especially not for that duration.
Dias really should’ve been in the mixer over someone like Gundo, it felt like he never touched the ball until the corners whereas Dias had countless pointless touches. Even when Stones came on I thought that was for someone that’d be a bit more effective with the ball but Pep wanted him in beside Erling (which did work, so fair play).
We tried putting everyone in that last spot Arsenal did a good job marking the better shooters
The 2nd half was perfect for Rico Lewis. Operates in tight pockets. Can combine with Foden. Idk why Walker and dias even played 80 minutes. This game is a proof that Grealish is crucial for big games. He may not provide assists or goals but very crucial. He is the only one who puts proper crosses into the Box these days.
We are too slow on counters compared to other elite teams. We press really good but waste time in the middle letting opposition come back to shape.
P.S. I can’t even imagine losing at home with a numerical advantage for half a game 😬. Stones saved me from having sleepless nights.
You know you’re running out of ideas when all you’re doing is peppering in long shots…. With your worst shooters…
Yesterday was a miss by pep overall I think, apart from sending in stones with a plan. Was really surprised to see no plan for stopping Gabriel, even after the massive warning. And then having key players for shots outside of the box, normally pep never misses those sort of details.
Better still, start the game with the current PL POTY. It’s not rocket science.
If there is one thing Guardiola is a master of, it‘s adjusting his tactics after a fuck up/mistake and coming out the winner (almost all the time)
We‘ll start to break these busses apart more easily from now on
Should have switched midfielders and defenders. Similar to the way inter set up at times. Why not push all our defenders in the box and move our midfielders outside the box? Crosses will be more effective and shots from outside the box will be more effective. Just have to be careful and will probably have to commit tactical fouls to prevent counter attacks with no defenders back.
He did, first Foden came in to pocket play but noone could get a pass to him. Then Pep swapped his and kova’s positions to put him in shooting position. But Declan Rice marked him too tight.
Foden generally needs a touch and a run up to Lazer a ball. As the last man he can’t try and pass the man to make the shot (too risky), and Declan wasn’t giving him the space he needs.
I kept thinking the same thing. And foden got on Jack’s side, which meant, even if he shot, it would be on his weak foot.
After yesterday match, Gvardiol is so good at these, he should shoot from outside the box every match now. Pep can’t sub him off bcoz Ake is injured.
Bc arsenal parked the bus, and every city player was man-marked in the box. That’s why only Dias was available to shoot. When Foden came in, Rice was in charge of marking him and not letting him shoot.
Besides, there was not a path to goal from outside the box. At some point arsenal had their 10 man covering Raya’s goal.
I think towards the end foden did camp outside the box
..and he did hit a couple shots, but one got blocked and the other one was into the crowd
Pep really needs to sort this. Our defense is leaking goals.
Once we concede against a small team they will have 10 men in their box. We cannot do tiki-taka then
Should’ve brought Stones on earlier for Walker and we needed to put more balls in the box. Playing around a packed and compact team like that is playing right into their hands
I was screaming “bring on Foden!” then he finally got brought on and didn’t get utilised properly.