James French Tactics At Manchester City 2025/2026: Early Signs Under Ex-Liverpool Coach – Set-Piece Analysis

Manchester Citys staff have witnessed numerous changes aimed at reviving the Citizens.

The most notable new additions are former Liverpool coaches Pepijn Lijnders and James French.

Lijnders has been appointed as assistant coach, while James French joins as set-piece coach.

In the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, Manchester City was one of the best teams in terms of attacking corners, and they employed some effective tactics under the leadership of their new set-piece coach.

We know that French didnt have time before the tournament, and it is difficult to teach the players new things during the tournament.

However, we can see some repeatedly implemented tricks, routines, or principles that may help us identify some features of his set-piece tactics and anticipate what he will prefer to do in the future.

In this tactical analysis, we will examine Man Citys attacking corner tactics, as implemented in the FIFA Club World Cup, highlighting common issues against zonal marking and man-marking defending systems in this set-piece analysis.

Man City Tactics Against Man Marking

To begin this football analysis, we will examine the common features of Manchester Citys attacking tactics against man-marking defending systems (systems that rely on man-markers having just three or fewer zonal defenders) at corners in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

The most important principles that they implemented against this defending system are screens (blocking the targeted players marker to free him, as in basketball), causing orientation problems for the opponent, and framing the goal.

As shown below, Al-Ain defend with two zonal defenders on the near post (green) and one in front of them to defend flicks and is ready to defend short corners.

They have six man markers and a player near the edge of the box ready to get the rebound.

On the other hand, Man City have six players in the box, two players on the edge of the box, and a player in the back for security.

The first targeted player (yellow) starts on the blind side of the zonal defenders to ensure that the second zonal defender cant see him while tracking the ball in the air, allowing him to surprise the defender.

He causes an orientation problem for the zonal defender in the targeted area because he cant track the ball and note the targeted players movement simultaneously.

As an additional note, the targeted player will push his man marker to separate from him for a moment and do this curved run to the targeted area.

By this starting position, his man marker will run sideways behind him.

Suppose the second zonal defender realises the run of the first targeted player and takes some steps toward the near post.

In that case, the role of the second targeted player comes to target the area that the second zonal defender leaves, as shown below.

Hence, we can say that they target two diffe