Man City 2023/24: Researching their routines in attacking free kicks – set-piece analysis

Man City finished their previous season by winning a historic treble. They achieved the Premier League, the FA Cup, and UEFA Champions League. Yet, they did not stop developing and paying attention to all the details, big and small.

Everyone knows the fierce competition in the Premier League, and that is why all the teams strive to excel in everything over the other teams. This was clearly shown in Man City in the pre-season, the UEFA Super Cup and the first two matches in the Premier League. City significantly improved their set pieces, especially at attacking free kicks.

In this tactical analysis and set-piece analysis, we will discuss the tactics of Pep Guardiolas team at attacking free kicks and how they varied and helped them to threaten the opponents goal.

Starting in the offside position

At first, we should know that defending free kick systems are affected by many factors, but here, we will focus on Man Citys ideas against the common high line generally.

In the game against Bayern Munich in pre-season, the first idea was to make Erling Haaland start in an offside position, but for a different reason than usual by many teams. Some teams make a player or more begin in an offside position to block a player from the line or, lets say, prevent him from stepping back to empty the way for another attacker. Other teams use an offside player, or more, to receive a second-headed pass from the first targeted man, but here we will focus on Man Citys use of the offside players.

In the first photo, Bayern Munich defended with a wall player in green, a short-option defender in yellow, the line and a player in white in front of it for the rebound. The red-highlighted attacker stands between the line and the wall player in green, so the first defender in the line, in blue, is forced to move to him.

In the second photo, Erling Haaland targets that area that the first defender leaves in a curved run, in green. Thats fine, but Haaland still stands in an offside position, which we explain in the third photo.

In the third photo, Haaland moves in an inclined path to the back, then moves forward, in green, but to make sure that he is onside, Manuel Akanji, in blue, and Rodri, in yellow, start to move with Haaland before the takers touch to force the line to move early to make Haaland onside.

Still, Bayern Munichs line drops late as the taker touches the ball, so in the fourth picture, Manuel Akanji and Rodri push the defenders to make Haaland onside, and that, with the help of his back movement at first, make him onside.

Haaland gets the ball and kicks the ball, but it hits the defender, as shown below.

In that closed photo, we see how Akanji push