The Man City Thread*******

That is sooooooo last season!

Quite aside from Baggio's comment about it having been an unusal season, fact is, football moves on all the time, esp at the top level. And an otherwise average Spurs side has already shown how to play M.City this season.

On the basis that most goals are scored from the area of the pitch between the goalposts and up to 15 yardfs out, M.City's main strategy is to get players running into that area with the ball, in the space between the lines of the opposition midfield and their defence, from where they either shoot, or play the killer pass to score from close in. In particular they use wide players cutting in to attack from the corners of the penalty area - Mahrez, Foden, Sterling, Grealish, even KDB at times.

Nuno was ready for that by withdrawing his midfield three deep - Hjoberg, Skipp, Dele even - while encouraging his central defenders, Sanchez and Dier, to step forward and play on the front foot. Those two alone must have blocked half a dozen attempts between them and the whole area was so crowded that despite majority possession to M.City, Lloris was hardly peppered. (Meanwhile Nuno picked 3 speedsters, Moura, Begwijn and Son, to hit them on the break.)

The point being that had M.City had a big striker (Kane?), or a "fox in the box" (Aguero?) at No.9 for Sanchez and Dier to contend with they would either have been forced deeper onto the back foot, thereby leaving space ahead of them between the lines; or, had they continued to step forward, that would have left space behind them for M.City's runners to close in on Lloris.

Alternatively, if a Kane-type No.9 dropped back deeper to the No.10 role, then opposition CB's would face the dilemma of either going with him (leaving space behnd them for the other M.City players), or letting him go (to overload or draw out the opposition defensive midfielders).

Of course even without those options, M.City will still have far too much for 15 or 16 of the other PL teams. 

But when they play the top 3 or 4?

Or in the CL?

BrendanD88 wrote: Reckon Torres will have a great season.

Isn't he basically a winger?

Fair enough, but my point was not so much that MCFC can be susceptible to the quick break, since all teams which press so high in such numbers have to accept that. And in any case, few opponents will have a player like Son to capitalise.

Rather it was that they didn't look like scoring, even with all the possession they had in/around the Spurs penalty area.

And that was against Dier and Sanchez!