Premier League 2018/19: How Manchester City set up to frustrate Liverpool

Prior to this match in the English Premier League, the narrative was firmly set that the Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola was very much coming up against an opponent, in Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool, who had figured out how to combat the Spaniards tactical approach. The tail end of the 2017/18 season saw the two sides meet on three separate occasions, twice in the latter stages of the Champions League and once in the Premier League with Manchester City failing to overcome their opponents in any match.

This season sees the two rivals from the North-West of England going step by step at the top of the Premier League table as they race to become champions. It is hard to look beyond one of these two sides finishing at the top of the table at the end of the season in May, despite the form of Chelsea under Maurizio Sarri and Arsenal under Unai Emery. These factors combined to make the first meeting of these two sides and these two coaches all the more interesting as the story lines continued to build around them.

When Guardiola was first appointed as coach of Manchester City back in 2016 there were concerns raised amongst the English media that the Spaniard was too set in his own style of football to be able to adapt to the English game and indeed in his first season this was borne out to an extent as sides were able to disrupt the tactical system of City through physicality and direct play. Last season, we saw clear signs that Guardiola was more than capable of adapting aspects of his tactical approach if not changing his overall ideals. Indeed, last season saw City blow away the majority of their opponents in some style  not Liverpool though.

That brings us to now and Guardiolas third season in charge of Manchester City as we wait to see which small amendments he has planned to this City side. In his third season in charge at Bayern Munich in Germany, we saw the culmination of his approach at the club as Bayern played some of the best football seen in Europe for some time, or probably since Guardiolas Barcelona side. Will we see something similar this season for City, and more importantly have they found the answer for Liverpool?

Team News 

In terms of the team news from City, there were a couple of small surprises sprung by Guardiola prior to the match with the Portuguese international midfielder Bernardo Silva and the Algerian international Riyad Mahrez in the lineup. With Raheem Sterling also in the side from the start, this gave City three players who had at some point played wide on the right of the attack for Guardiola this season.

In the end, we saw Sterling play predominantly from the left, despite the fact that the German, Leroy Sane, was on the bench and Bernardo Silva took up a central midfield role whilst Mahrez played in his more comfortable position wide right. This was not, however, the end of the intrigue as we will see further on when we examine the midfield composition that City used.

The only other notable piece of team news saw Benjamin Mendy return to play at left back.

The Midfield

With the Belgian international midfielder Kevin De Bruyne still recovering from injury, we have seen a more significant role given by Pep Guardiola to the German Ilkay Gundogan as one of the two 8s in the coaches preferred 4-3-3 system. In recent weeks, however, questions have been raised regarding the level of performance from Gundogan and this match saw a reaction from Guardiola as he installed Bernardo Silva into the starting lineup.

The expectation from most when the team news was released was that Bernardo Silva would play as one of the 8s alongside David Silva. Instead, as the match went on we saw a change in system from Guardiola with Bernardo Silva playing centrally alongside Fernandinho as a double pivot at the base of the midfield.

Here we see City as they build up from the back. Both central defenders John Stones and Aymeric Laporte are comfortable in possession and that allows the fullbacks to progress to the same line as the controlling midfielder or the 6. In this match, though we saw Bernardo Silva more and more into the double pivot position. This move was designed to increase the security that City had on the ball as they looked to progress their attacking phase forwards. Having two deep-lying central midfielders gives different passing angles and passing lanes as the ball is moved forward.

Again in this example, we can see the back four for Manc