All of us knows Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City dominated English football in the past two seasons. However, before the ‘Centurions’ and the ‘Fourmidables” campaigns, the Citizens suffered a lot in the Premier League. One of Guardiola’s biggest defeats in his managerial career was a humiliation at Goodison Park in January 2017. In that game, Ronald Koeman’s Everton struck four against Manchester City.
In this tactical analysis, we will show you the details of the game. It is an analysis that focuses on the tactics of the game.
Lineups
Everton started in a 3-5-1-1 formation. Ramiro Funes Mori, Ashley Williams and Mason Holgate formed the back three. The midfield three were Ross Barkley, Gareth Barry and Tom Davies, and they made an impact in the game. Romelu Lukaku was supported by his Belgian teammate, Kevin Mirallas.
For City, they played in a 4-3-1-2 without any conventional wingers. Bacary Sagna started as the right-back. Therefore, Pablo Zabaleta played as the right midfielder, partnered with Yaya Touré and Kevin De Bruyne. Raheem Sterling and Sergio Agüero paired as the strikers upfront.
Everton’s defensive style of play
Koeman’s team were well prepared for the game; in the hope of making City’s build-up more difficult, they maintained a certain level of pressure. With the front five, Everton could partially man-mark the City players, as shown in the below image, while the wing-backs were tasked with controlling Sagna and Gaël Clichy.
This approach required huge defensive efforts from the midfield trio. As you can see, if Barkley stepped out to approach Nicolás Otamendi, he had two City players behind. It fell for Barry to cover the free player. During the press, they had to be quick, and though the Toffees might not always have won the ball in the central third, by no means did they let City players turn.
