Has Pep pivoted to City’s midfield solution?
ENFORCED CHANGE COULD BE WHAT BOSS HAS BEEN LOOKING FOR
CITY might just have found a vital solution to one of their biggest problems last season.
For the first time in three seasons, the Blues never truly got to grips with games against the more dangerous Premier League teams - Manchester United and Wolves both did the league double over them, Liverpool won the only meeting that truly mattered, and they lost at Chelsea and Spurs as well as the FA Cup semi-final against resurgent Arsenal.
Going into Monday’s season opener at Wolves, City fans were understandably nervous, especially as the Blues lost seven players in the run-up, including Ilkay Gundogan, who would almost certainly have started but was a late cry-off after a positive Covid-19 test.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and the change forced by Gundogan’s absence turned out to be a tactical master-stroke.
Failing to give Pep Guardiola credit for the way he solved the problem of losing Gundogan would be churlish - he is sure to have considered the option of playing Fernandinho and Rodri as a double pivot before.
It seems likely that, with Aymeric Laporte and Eric Garcia unavailable, he was planning to play Fernandinho alongside debutant Nathan Ake at the centre of defence. Gundogan has been given a deep role alongside Rodri many times before, and Guardiola sees him as crucial to the way City build from the back, even if some City fans do not always see the intelligence of what he does. Moving Fernandinho into that position, closer to the role in which he has become an alltime great for the Blues, was hardly a revelation.
In fact, once Laporte had returned from injury last season and Garcia emerged as his partner, Fernandinho was relieved of his role as central defender, one he had performed with some distinction.
He became a midfield eld option once more, and even played a double pivot with Gundogan, in the 2-1 -1 win over Bournemouth.
Guardiola always used d to prefer one holding and two attacknly attacking in his midfield, and only used to bow to his great footballing ng enemy - pragmatism - in extreme me circumhe circumstances, such as when he played Bernardo Silva alongside e Fernandalless Fernandinho at Anfield in a goalless draw two seasons ago.
Gundogan has been increasingly ncreasingly used as more of a partner er to Rodri rather than the linking g “number eight” between defence and nd attack.
But teaming up Rodri i and Ferdream, Fernandinho worked like a dream, with
Teaming up Rodri and Fernandinho worked like a dream ... the Spaniard and the Brazilian mopped everything up
the strong pressing of Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden, Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling in front of their stylish solidity. Wolves struggled to break the City press, and when they did, the Spaniard and the Brazilian mopped everything up. The biggest criticism of Rodri last season - his first in sky blue - was that he is not the most adventurous of passers. Indeed, the centre backs behind him, Fernandinho and Aymeric Laporte, were more likely to make those long sweeping balls to the wingers which are so crucial to opening up defensive opposition. But with Fernandinho in midfield, aided by the younger legs of Rodri, they suddenly had both options in the centre of the park - Rodri’s sharp short passing and Ferna’s more expansive game.
Last season Wolves undid the Blues by using the pace of Adama Traore and Raul Jimenez down the middle, on the counter-attack.
Maybe Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo second-guessed Guardiola, playing the impossibly quick Traore wide on the right, away from the intense midfield traffic, and directly up against the defensively suspect Ben Mendy.
In the second half, City’s intensity dropped, which was natural given they were a week behind Wolves in their preparation, and Traore had plenty of joy against Mendy, to make the game closer than it might have been.
Three points to start the season were very welcome, but the birth of a new midfield option for Guardiola may be just as important.