Manchester City have endured a patchy 2025/2026 season, with inconsistent performances and key injuries disrupting their defensive spine.
To address these issues, Pep Guardiola strengthened in January by signing Marc Guéhi to bolster the back line and Antoine Semenyo to refresh the attack, while the return of Omar Marmoush from AFCON 2025 added further attacking quality.
This data analysis report examines Manchester City’s tactical landscape under Pep Guardiola following the January 2026 reinforcements, with a particular focus on the reintegration of Omar Marmoush after his standout AFCON 2025 campaign with Egypt, alongside the arrivals of Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guéhi.
The Manchester City analysis looks at Man City as a collective unit, tracking their tactical adjustments and structural fluctuations across the season, before focusing on the limited but revealing sample of matches played after the January transfer window.
Using data-driven insights, we examine how Guardiola adapted his systems to accommodate these profiles, the impact on pressing, spacing, and chance creation, and what these changes signal for City’s evolving identity during the second half of the campaign.
Manchester City Formation Under Pep Guardiola 2025/2026
Throughout the 2025/2026 campaign, Pep Guardiola has leaned heavily on structural flexibility to navigate Manchester City’s inconsistent form and injury disruptions.
The most prominent system deployed has been the 4-1-4-1, used in approximately 53% of City’s matches to date.
This shape has provided Guardiola with control and stability, particularly through a single pivot shielding the defence while allowing the two advanced central midfielders to dictate tempo and progress play between the lines.
The 4-3-2-1 formation has been adopted at 13%, offering greater central compactness and enabling City to overload the half-spaces with two narrow attacking midfielders operating behind the striker.
Meanwhile, the more familiar 4-3-3 has appeared in 12% of fixtures, typically when Guardiola has prioritised width and high positional occupation from the wingers.
Alternative structures such as 4-1-3-2 and 4-3-1-2 have been used sparingly (under 5%), largely as situational adaptations rather than core frameworks.
In the final two matches following the January window, Guardiola’s integration of Antoine Semenyo and the reintegration of Omar Marmoush added a clear tactical edge.
Semenyo provided direct running and physical presence from wide areas, while Marmoush’s inclusion enhanced verticality, off-the-ball movement, and transitional threat.
Their usage reflects Guardiola’s subtle shift towards greater dynamism and depth in attack, without compromising the positional discipline that continues to define City’s evolving tactical identity in the second half of the season.
Can Marc Guéhi Fix Manchester City’s Defence & Build‑Up Problems?
One of Manchester City’s recurring tactical issues this season has been their difficulty in building up play from the back, particularly in games where the opposition presses intelligently, as in their recent 2–0 defeat to Manchester United.
Manchester City Build-Up Tracking Vs Manchester United – Premier League 2025/2026
Instead of playing progressive passes into midfield, Guardiola’s side often resorted to sweeping the ball wide to full‑backs or reverting to lateral circulation without real forward momentum.
This led to frequent sideways and backward ball movement, which allowed United to reorganise their shape and compress central channels.
When City did finally try to penetrate, too many passes went astray, resulting in loss of possession or passes straight to opponents rather than forward progression, a symptom of poor quality in transitional pass combinations.
Compounding these issues, City’s backline has suffered a spate of injuries to key defenders, forcing inexperienced players into crucial roles.
With senior centre‑backs such as Rúben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, and John Stones sidelined, substitutes lacked both positional awareness and composure under pressure, resulting in weak defensive transitions and poor control when out of possession.
This instability was evident in both the build‑up and reset phases of defence, where opponents capitalised on hesitation and miscommunication within City’s defensive unit.
Enter Marc Guéhi, who signed in January 2026 to directly address these concerns.
Tactically, Guéhi brings a deeper sense of defensive organisation and assurance, qualities Guardiola has long prized in his centre‑backs.
He’s comfortable under pressure on the ball and adept at playing forward passes, helping to break opposition lines instead of merely retaining possession sideways.
An analysis of Marc Guéhi’s recent defensive statistics demonstrates his clear impact in areas Manchester City has struggled this season.
Marc Guéhi Defensive Distributions Map With Crystal Palace 2025/2026
Over his 2025/2026 minutes, he contested 85 defensive duels and won 65.9% of them.
Most impressively, Guéhi recorded 107 interceptions and 225 recoveries (with 16.9% of these in the opposition half), alongside 63 clearances, highlighting his constant contribution to breaking up play and alleviating pressure.
His combination of physicality and positional intelligence allows him to consistently win both ground and aerial battles.
At the same time, his interceptions and recoveries frequently disrupt counterpressing transitions before they develop into dangerous situations.
These metrics underline why Guéhi provides both defensive stability and an improved platform for City’s build-up play from the back.
Guéhi’s heat map, typically more active on the left side of central defence, demonstrates his willingness to support both wide and central build‑up phases, meaning he can help alleviate pressure on full‑backs who’ve been isolated or targeted.
Marc Guéhi Heat Map – Premier League 2025/2026
Guéhi’s strong numbers in clearances reduce the risk of second‑phase attacks, and his interceptions and recoveries provide the kind of defensive ballast that City’s injury‑ravaged backline has desperately needed, improving reset defence and cutting passing lanes before danger escalates.
Omar Marmoush’s Post-AFCON Reintegration, Restoring Verticality & Dynamism To Manchester City’s Attack
Following his return from AFCON 2025, Omar Marmoush’s reintegration has quietly but decisively altered Manchester City’s attacking dynamics.
Marmoush arrived back in Manchester full of confidence after a standout tournament with Egypt, where he played a decisive role in carrying the national team to the semi-finals, most notably scoring the winning goal against Côte d’Ivoire after an impeccably timed pressing action high up the pitch.
That moment encapsulated the very qualities Guardiola values: intensity without the ball, vertical aggression, and intelligence in transitional phases.
Despite an injury-disrupted first half of the 2025/2026 season, Marmoush’s underlying numbers across 1,563 minutes for club and country remain highly encouraging.
Omar Marmoush Shot Map 2025/2026 With Man City & Egypt National Team
He has recorded six goals, generating 5.02 xG from 46 shots, with an impressive 41.3% on-target, underscoring his shot selection and efficiency in limited minutes.
His ball-carrying remains a major weapon, completing 40% of his dribbles while winning 37.1% of his offensive duels, often destabilising defensive structures in isolation.
His heat-map this season highlights his preference for operating in the left half-space, either drifting inside beneath the striker or, at times, leading the line himself.
Omar Marmoush Heat Map – Premier League 2025/2026
From these zones, Marmoush consistently attacks the box, recording 64 touches in the penalty area and 44 progressive runs, offering Guardiola a flexible alternative profile to Erling Haaland.
His restored sharpness adds verticality, unpredictability, and pressing bite to City’s evolving second-half identity.
Antoine Semenyo, Adding A Missing Scoring Dimension To Manchester City’s Attack
The January acquisition of Antoine Semenyo addresses a long-standing tactical imbalance in Manchester City’s attacking structure.
Since the arrival of Erling Haaland, City’s goal output has become increasingly centralised, with finishing responsibility heavily concentrated on a single reference point.
While this has maximised Haaland’s strengths, it has also increased City’s vulnerability in matches in which he is well contained or physically neutralised.
Semenyo’s profile offers Guardiola a crucial secondary scoring outlet, reducing that dependency and diversifying City’s attacking threat.
Semenyo is not a conventional touchline winger; his 2025/2026 heat map with Bournemouth illustrates a forward who consistently occupies interior lanes, attacking the half-spaces and the penalty area rather than maintaining width.
Antoine Semenyo Heat Map – Premier League 2025/2026
He recorded 104 touches in the penalty area and 95 progressive runs, metrics that align with Guardiola’s need for runners attacking depth alongside Haaland or Marmoush.
Across 2,973 minutes, he scored 13 goals and provided one assist, producing 10.41 xG from 61 shots, with an elite 54.1% on target.
Antoine Semenyo Shot Map With AFC Bournemouth 2025/2026 – Pre-January Move
These numbers underline a winger who behaves like a forward in City’s positional play framework, arriving in high-value zones rather than settling for low-probability wide actions.
His ball-carrying further reinforces this tactical fit.
Semenyo completed 55.1% of his dribbles and won 37.2% of his offensive duels, frequently breaking defensive lines through direct, vertical carries.
Semenyo functions as an attacking “extra piece” rather than a fixed winger, capable of pinning full-backs, attacking second balls, and arriving late into scoring zones.
This gives City a more resilient attacking ecosystem, ensuring chance creation and goal threat persist even on nights when Haaland’s output dips.
Conclusion
Manchester City’s January reinforcements represent a clear, data-informed attempt to address the structural problems that have shaped an uneven 2025/2026 campaign, rather than finished solutions.
The additions of Marc Guéhi, Antoine Semenyo, and the reintegration of Omar Marmoush are best understood as profile-based corrections to specific weaknesses in City’s game.
Guéhi is intended to stabilise a disrupted defensive line and improve build-up security under pressure, while Marmoush is expected to reintroduce verticality, intensity, and off-ball threat after AFCON.
Semenyo, meanwhile, has been recruited to add a secondary scoring presence and reduce City’s heavy reliance on Erling Haaland.
Collectively, these moves suggest an evolving tactical direction from Guardiola, one that seeks to blend positional control with greater dynamism and physical edge.
Their true impact will be defined over the coming months, as integration, usage, and context ultimately determine whether these adjustments translate into sustained performance gains in the season’s decisive phase.
