To the left of Rodri, Ilkay Gündogan kept himself to the left half space with Kevin de Bruyne out wide in the right half space, while Haaland was up front as a pressing forward who dropped deep in the build-up. As Ruben Dias remains central to protect that area of the pitch, Rodri hold his position in front of the wide back three, with Stones close connected to him. In practice, the team defends with four defenders, but when the team is in possession, Ruben Dias is one on one with the opposing forward. Especially, in terms of how Ajax used Ruud Krol and Suurbier as fullbacks, and one player (Vasovic or Hulshoff) pushing up in the midfield, just like a libero – something that is somehow similar to the Stones role within Pep Guardiola’s new Manchester City 3-2-4-1 tactics! The shape looks in many ways much similar to Ajax’s Total Football system and the Johan Cruyff’s 3-4-3 formation, at least the shape at the back. Rather than keeping two centre backs at the back to free up the wingbacks to move forward into the final third, only Rúben Dias holds position at the back with Aké and Akanji playing almost like traditional fullbacks. Manchester City’s new 3-2-4-1 tactic helps to do just that! In today’s football, the speed of transition from defensive and attacking organization is more important than ever! With minimal requirement of time to change the shape in and out of possession, Pep Guardiola and other managers have tried to find the ideal solution to maintain numerical superiority in the middle of the pitch whilst also defending all zones and channels of the football pitch. With more focus on transitions and the speed of attacking transition, Pep Guardiola has taken his aggressive way of defending one step further by ensuring the team is able to defend against counter-attacks with the correct positioning of his players by moving one of the defenders higher up the pitch. In the early years of Pep Guardiola’s manager career, he used to convert defensive midfielders into centre backs to ensure he had players adept at passing the ball – helping the team to build out from the back. The move from 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 that Pep Guardiola has traditionally used in the past seasons to a more unorthodox 3-2-5 formation in possession caught the attention of many pundits, including me! The shift from a 4-1 shape at the back with a single pivot, to a double pivot in front of a back three – has not gone unnoticed! Especially, due to the tactical surprise of putting John Stones, a centre back, as one of two holding midfielders! His latest innovation, the new 3-2-4-1 tactics, that we hereby will look to recreate in Football Manager 2023, has seen Man City taking a huge step forward to claim both the UEFA Champions League and the Premier League trophy in the 2022/23 season. For instance, by making small adaptions to how he uses his wingers and 8 and 10th’s to get the best out of the powerful striker, Erling Haaland, or how he uses his fullbacks and defensive midfielders. Either to counter specific strengths of weaknesses of a single opponent, or to get the best out of his players, he has evolved by introducing something brand new to his tactics or revamped what’s been working before. The Manchester City tactics under Pep Guardiola can all be described as the football meta as the tactical genius of Pep Guardiola revives and innovates the game into a winning formula.įrom 4-3-3 to 2-3-5, Pep Guardiola has changed football tactics in the 20th century in rapid steps by revolutionizing the way his teams play, season by season. So far this season Pep Guardiola six different tactical formations and shapes from inverting the pyramid to the traditional 4-4-2. From using mainly the 4-3-3 at Barcelona, the tactical system used at Manchester City changes swiftly from a back four to a back three in and out of possession, and from games to games. Manchester City’s tactics under Pep Guardiola has become more and more flexible. At Barcelona, at Bayern Münich and now at Manchester City, he has revolutionized player roles that’s been used in the past and modernized it to today, catching both opposite managers and opposing players off guard by coming up with a new tactical innovation that helps his team to dominate the match in the way he sees fit. Pep Guardiola is the master of reinvention.
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