Matchday 13 of the FAWSL brought us an interesting tactical matchup between Manchester City and Birmingham City. Manchester City Women sit at the top of the league and look to maintain their momentum with an FA Women’s Cup Manchester derby right around the corner. Birmingham City LFC are still trying to find a rhythm under manager Marta Tejedor. Tejedor has previously managed the national teams of Chile and Peru, as well as Atletico Madrid.
Through analysis, we see that Manchester City brought their typical aggressive tactics both in and out of possession. Birmingham City, also stuck to possession-based attacking tactics and never wavered from it, despite high pressure. This tactical analysis will look into exactly how it happened.
Lineups
Birmingham City (4-4-2): Hampton, Mayling, Scott, Holloway, Jordan, Arthur, Staniforth, Walker, Whipp, Grant, Williams.
Manchester City (4-4-2): Roebuck, Beckie, Bonner, Houghton, Stokes, Weir, Scott, Walsh, Bremer, White, Hemp.
Manchester City: attack through Beckie
Manchester City’s attack initially began around creating space for Janine Beckie on the right flank and quickly moving the ball to her in forward space. Beckie is a natural forward and City has begun to use her attacking qualities from the right-back position. Once the ball was moved to Beckie, Manchester City had multiple immediate attacking options that proved difficult to defend against.
Manchester City sought to create space for Beckie by playing the ball to the left flank and establishing a deep diamond. Once a diamond was created, the far side midfielder (Jill Scott), would drop into space in front of the Birmingham City line midfield to create a passing outlet to the right flank.
The Manchester City diamond would circulate the ball to draw in the Birmingham City block. Birmingham City was focused on retaining a compact structure that made it difficult for Manchester City to play through vertically. Once the Birmingham City block was drawn to the left side of the pitch, Manchester City would employ a direct pass to Beckie on the far flank or release the ball to Scott in the central channel, who then released the ball to Beckie.
Once Beckie received the ball in space she would dribble forward aggressively toward the Birmingham City goal. In this moment, Manchester City forwards, Ellen White and Pauline Bremer would move into blindside positions on their marking defenders.
This gave Manchester City the attacking options of A) Beckie, who had the ability to penetrate forward and potentially win a 1v1. And B) White and Bremer who were making attacking runs into the box in blindside positions of their closest defenders. Manchester City attacked in this fashion for a majority of the first half.
At the twenty-three-minute mark, we see an example of this tactic playing out. We see that centreback Gemma Bonner has aligned as the base of the diamond with Demi Stokes and Kiera Walsh as the left and right sides of the diamond respectively. Lauren Hemp has aligned as the top of the diamond.
In this moment, the point of reference for the diamond is to be positioned in front of the Birmingham City sliding midfield line. The diamonds position indicates that Manchester City would like to draw the Birmingham block across and forward. This drags the block away from Beckie, who is waiting high on the far side of the pitch.
After some passing circulation, we see that Birmingham City’s left midfielder Abbi Grant has been drawn all the way to the centre of the pitch. Manchester City, as quickly as possible, pass the ball directly to the feet of Beckie who penetrates forward with pace. As Beckie drives forward, White and Bremer make central runs to the eighteen-yard box.
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