Premier League 2018/19: Manchester City vs Bournemouth

A new weekend of the Premier League pitted leaders Manchester City against mid-table AFC Bournemouth in a game that was expected to continue the team’s good run. Peps boys have been on a winning streak since 7 Octobers draw against Liverpool, and unbeaten since the start of the season.

Although the 3-1 result may seem like an easy victory, the tactical analysis shows a worked victory over a rival that deployed a very intelligent tactical defensive positioning. They managed to cut the offensive connections for Manchester City, on what was probably one of the weakest games of the inside midfielders, in this case Bernardo Silva and Gündogan. Don’t be misled by them scoring: their usual key function was poorly deployed, in part because of the visitors’ good defensive coherence.

Adaptability is the name of the game

Manchester City started with a classic 4-3-3 including some unusual starters, such as Otamendi, Danilo and Gabriel Jesus. On the other side, the away team started with a 5-4-1 formation that turned into a 4-3-3 when attacking. Bournemouth decided not to pressure their hosts too high.

As a result, Fernandinho was able to receive the ball with a decent amount of space in front of him. This was something he is not used to, especially with no need to position himself between the two central defenders. Instead, Bournemouth players focused the intense defending in their own half, in between Fernandinho and the forward line, with nine players covering both wings and with specific focus on both inside midfielders.

This resulted in both players, Bernardo Silva and Gündogan, with very little participation in the build-up phase of Manchester City. But when a team has such cohesion and teamwork between their players, they have the capacity to adapt to unexpected scenarios. Without being able to connect using short passes, Pep’s team changed the strategy and started shooting long passes to both wingers, Sane and Sterling, that positioned higher found more spaces by using their higher speed against Bournemouth defenders.

That way, the Blues were able to skip a very populated middle of the field and take advantage of their faster wingers, each of them with different strategies. While Sane received longer passes , beating the position with his speed, Sterling usually looked for 1v1 situations that he was able to turn into dangerous crosses into the area. It was from one of these long passes the first goal came after a good pass from Zinchenko to Sane. After putting the ball into the area, it was caught by Bernardo Silva fired home.