English League Cup 2019/20: Manchester United vs Manchester City – tactical analysis

After the tight schedules in December, there was another huge clash, a derby between Manchester United and Manchester City in the English League Cup. With almost no title hope in the domestic league, this tournament became a good opportunity for both teams to win a trophy.

In the previous round, they beat Colchester United by three goals. However, United did not have their best form recently. They just newly lost to Arsenal, drew a game against Wolves.

For City, Pep Guardiola made some adjustments on his teams since some unsatisfactory performances. They slightly rotated the team in the FA Cup for the derby, of course, looked for retaliation for the defeat in the league.

In this tactical analysis, we will show you the tactics of United and City. The main focuses of this analysis are the inefficacy of United on both ends and the high-quality pressing of City.

Lineups

Ole Gunnar Solskjær lined his team in a 4-2-3-1 formation. His choices of players were limited due to several injuries, the latest player injured was Harry Maguire. Both pivots, Paul Pogba and Scott Mctominay were sidelined. Therefore, Fred and Andreas Pereira played as the defensive midfielders. Mason Greenwood took the central forward position while Marcus Rashford started as the left-winger.

Pep Guardiola’s team did not use their tradition formation or a back three. Instead, they tried a 4-4-2 system with Gabriel Jesus and Sergio Agüero on the bench. Bernardo Silva and Kevin De Bruyne were the front players on paper. Although Aymeric Laporte was backed to training sessions, he was not fully fit for an intense derby. Fernandinho and Nicolás Otamendi partnered as the centre-backs.

Defensive issues of United

United did not replicate the game plan of the previous derby, instead of sitting deep, they pressed high to disrupt the City’s build-up. Their press was man-oriented. In the early stages of the game, Jesse Lingard was marking Rodrigo Hernández, whose position was regarded as the main source of City’s attack. Greenwood pressed Bravo as the Chilean made a few errors under pressure previously, for example, the Everton game. They allowed Rashford pressed Fernandinho as Brandon Williams would also step up to mark the wide player.

However, as De Bruyne has said, City had dealt with a similar system before. United did not perform their best under this system, their players did not mark their targets tightly. It gave the players plenty of room to receive the ball freely, as De Bruyne did below.