Premier League 2018/19: Manchester City vs Everton

After their midweek victory against Hoffenheim, Manchester City were back in the Premier League facing Everton. The second half of December is a tough period for football teams in England as they enter a series of nine games in less than a month, that started for City last weekend against Chelsea and ends after New Year. Pep Guardiola has put forth his objections against this habit of English football before, because is very demanding both physically and emotionally for his players. Still, Manchester City put in a decent performance in a strange game that put them back temporarily at the top of the Premier League before Liverpool beat Manchester United on Sunday. In this tactical analysis we will discuss how they managed this.

The more defensive you are, the wider I play

It was a weird game. If you look at the final result, you could say it was a relatively easy game for Manchester City. If you were to look at the game highlights, you could conclude that the result was exaggerated and that it doesn’t show how tight the game was, or the clear chances Everton missed. If you watch the whole game, however, you can argue that actually Manchester City were in control most of the time.

So how did the game develop? Everton started with 5-4-1 tactical setup, without pressing high up the pitch and putting a large number of players between the half line and the first quarter of their pitch to reduce spaces in that sector. Manchester City started with their classic 4-3-3, Fernandinho returning as centre midfielder, Gündogan and Bernardo Silva as inside midfielders and Sane, Gabriel Jesus and Mahrez in the forward line.

As Everton packed their half of the pitch, Pep Guardiola ordered his inside midfielders to play wider and try to receive the ball closer to the side-line. With three players on each wing, the wing back, inside midfielder and winger playing wide, the idea was to drag some Everton players out of the centre channel to open up spaces.

This gave Fernandinho a more important role on the build-up phase, as he was mostly the target man on that middle channel. With the ball in his feet, however, Fernandinho didn’t perform well in the first half. In his defence, he was isolated in the middle, usually surrounded by Everton players, but several missed passes were without a lot of pressure from his rivals.