Manchester City were coming off back-to-back draws and desperate for three points to keep pace with Arsenal at the top of the table.
Brighton had been on their own bad run coming into the match.
Their win over Burnley this weekend was their first win in seven matches, as they were looking to find a way to get back into the top half of the table.
It’s been a difficult season in terms of results for Fabian Hürzeler away from home because the Seagulls only had one win in their last eight matches coming into Wednesday.
Manchester City, on the other hand, has been dominant at the Etihad this season with an 8-2-1 Premier League record and a +11.5 expected goal differential.
Brighton came from behind in the previous meeting between these two in 2025/2026 to beat Manchester City 2-1, and Wednesday proved that they continue to be one of Manchester City’s most difficult opponents.
Last season, they beat Manchester City on the south coast and drew with them at the Etihad.
Earlier this season, they came from behind to beat Manchester City once again 2-1 on the south coast.
In this tactical analysis, we will take a look at Manchester City’s build-up tactics, how Brighton took advantage of Manchester City’s high line, and the effectiveness of City’s high press.
Manchester City Vs Brighton Lineups & Formations
For the second straight match, Pep Guardiola lined Manchester City up in a 4-1-4-1 formation.
Gianluigi Donnarumma started in net behind Abdukodir Khusanov and Max Alleyne, who was making his first career start, as the centre-back pairing.
Nathan Aké started at left-back, while Matheus Nunes lined up at right-back.
Nicolás González started as the lone defensive midfielder, with Tijjani Reijnders and Phil Foden ahead of him in central midfield.
Jeremy Doku returned from injury to start at left midfield, while Bernardo Silva started in his usual spot at right midfield.
Erling Haaland occupied his usual spot up top at striker.
Pep Guardiola made four substitutions in the match.
In the 64th minute, Rodri came on for Nicolás González.
In the 73rd minute, Guardiola made a triple substitution, bringing Rayan Cherki for Phil Foden, Rico Lewis for Matheus Nunes, and Nico O’Reilly for Nathan Aké.
Fabian Hurzeler lined Brighton up in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Bart Verbruggen occupied his usual spot in goal behind Jan Paul van Hecke and Lewis Dunk as the centre-back pairing.
Maxim De Cuyper started at left-back, while Jack Hinshelwood started at right-back.
Pascal Groß got his first start back at the club alongside Yasin Ayari in defensive midfield.
Diego Gómez started as the number 10 with Kaoru Mitoma at left wing and Ferdi Kadioglu at right wing.
Georginio Rutter got his first start of the season up top as the main striker.
Fabian Hurzeler made four substitutions in the match.
In the 77th minute, Danny Welbeck came on for Georginio Rutter, and Brajan Gruda came on for Diego Gómez.
In the 83rd minute, Tom Watson came on for Kaoru Mitoma, and James Milner came on for Yasin Ayari.
Manchester City Build-Up Tactics
Pep did something a little different with his build-up in this match.
When Manchester City played Chelsea over the weekend, he switched them to a 3-1-6 using Rodri as the single pivot.
Here, early on, though, he was inverting Nunes into the middle of the pitch to create almost a 3-2-2-3 build-up.
Foden and Reijnders were given license to roam centrally and out wide to find pockets of space.
There were also instances where Doku would invert, and Aké would be the one providing the width out wide.
Coming into this match, Brighton led the Premier League in high turnovers and had the second-lowest PPDA.
So it seems Pep’s goal was, as always, to control the middle of the pitch, but also give Brighton a lot of different looks.
You can see that once Manchester City entered the final third, Brighton played a really deep, compact 5-2-3, with the main emphasis on not allowing any space between the lines.
Because of that, you can see Pep pushing both Aké and Nunes into more central positions to create a nice rest defence around Brighton’s defensive block, so that it helps Manchester City easily counterpress when they lose the ball.
This also helps prevent counterattacks right up the middle, which Pep’s side has struggled with a bit this season.
One of the other main things Manchester City did once they entered the final third was to isolate Doku against the full-back out wide by overloading the middle, creating space for him.
He ended up winning the penalty for City’s goal and, for the match, had eight progressive carries, five carries into the penalty area, five successful take-ons, and led the team with 10 touches inside the penalty area.
Late in the match, with all the new subs on the bench, Rodri dropped into the back line so both Lewis and O’Reilly could move into more central positions, creating a 3-4-3.
Manchester City High Line
Even though Manchester City were dominant in this match, their inexperienced backline was tested far too often.
By starting Rutter, Hürzeler had a forward who could drop into central spaces and one of the two centre-backs with him.
Because of this, that would naturally create space in behind for both of Brighton’s wingers.
You can see here Dunk makes a direct pass up to Rutter dropping in, pulling Khusanov with him, and then is able to turn and play Kadioglu in behind.
This is basically what Brighton was trying to do all match long, and then towards the end started playing more direct balls to their forwards.
As the match went along, Brighton started to push more forwards up to the City’s last line to try and overload them.
You can see here that Kadioglu drops in without a centre-back following him and is still able to make a run off the backline to send a cross into the box.
Manchester City Press
Manchester City completely destroyed Brighton’s build-up on Wednesday, and some of their best chances came directly from high turnovers.
City forced 11 high turnovers, four of them directly leading to a shot, and 42 danger zone losses.
You can see here that Brighton’s build-up was basically a 4-2-4, and the free man they often had in build-up was De Cuyper out of the left because Nunes was very hesitant to come up and press, since his responsibility was also marking Mitoma if Brighton went long.
City were relentless in the intensity of their press, trying to go man-to-man, while Brighton often used their +1 advantage to try and play through them.
In the end, it wasn’t very successful because not only did they turn it over at a high rate, but they were also forced to play it long up to the forwards.
When that happened in situations where Rutter was not dropping deep, City would maintain a 4-v-3 advantage on the backline to allow them to retain possession.
One of the biggest chances City had in the match was Brighton trying to play a bounce pass that Cherki sat on and set up Haaland for a point-blank shot in front of the net.
This was actually one of two high turnovers that happened inside Brighton’s own penalty area.
Conclusion
The final expected goals tally favoured Manchester City 2.5 to Brighton’s 1.0.
Were Manchester City a little unlucky not to pick up all three points? Yes and no.
They did create more chances than Brighton, but to be honest, they didn’t create a lot of chances from open play that were of high quality.
City took 20 non-penalty shots and created 1.77 expected goals from those shots, which really isn’t that efficient.
In fact, when you go through all of Manchester City’s shots, only three of them from open play had an xG rating over 0.10.
From a Brighton perspective, it was a little odd that Hürzeler chose to consistently try to build out of the back and play through Manchester City’s press.
When Brighton play bigger opponents, they’ll often overload the last line of defence and play a lot of direct balls up to the forwards.
Especially with Manchester City playing a makeshift backline with some inexperience at centre-back, it would have made sense to consistently test them.
Dropping Rutter in deep consistently did force City’s centre-back out of position, but given the chances Brighton created, that tactic didn’t really work, and Brighton turned it over in their own end of the pitch at way too high a rate.
Manchester City will have to regroup after their FA Cup match this weekend against Exeter City, as they have back-to-back away matches against Newcastle and Manchester United.
Brighton got a much-needed point and now has a very important FA Cup match against Manchester United on Sunday.
