Pep Dominance.

“I want to make our fans proud!”

Arguably one of the statements that the City boss has actualized in his tenure at Manchester City. A well decorated manager with successive stints at Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona. He has grown to become a household name as a football club manager. Famous with his tiki-taka style of football where possession is key towards building up a goal. Pep has grown this philosophy of football into his own and has largely succeeded in injecting it into the football club he has managed.

Simple complete passes lead to goals and this then translates to entertaining football. At only 50 years, Pep has seen Manchester City establish dominance in the Premier League with his attacking 4-3-3 formation. Creative midfielders have seen him grow his game with Kevin De Bruyne at the heart of his midfield.

So, what makes Pep the best Premier league Manager?

Pep aims at establishing superiority in all places on the pitch by maintaining a balance in both halves of the pitch. A new revolution of players which has seen Pep shed off the old squad an orient new lads into the squad. The defense has been a priority and finding defender that would fit as leader and replace Vincent Kompany at the heart of the Manchester City defense has come at a huge cost to the club. The Cityzens have seen two goal keepers and nine defenders arrive at the Etihad over the last four years since Pep took over. Cumulatively, City have spent €509.1 million on its defense. They seem to have finally settled the defense problems with the Ruben Dias signing coming in and formed an unstoppable defense that has kept 17 clean sheets in which Ruben Dias has been at the heart of 11. With the defensive stability established by the Dias-Stones pairing City look towards establishing their midfield and activity up front.

Inverted Fullbacks

“He’s playing at a good level, his consistency especially and he is always tactically smart and defensively, he is so, so smart he doesn’t make mistakes.” Pep on Zinchenko.

Zinchenko and Cancelo have been made to play mostly as inverted fullbacks. This works during the advanced phase of the games. Initially, they sit back as fullbacks but drift towards the center of the pitch as the attack build up. City will therefore have a surplus in the midfield and outshine their opponents in terms of numbers in the midfield. This will then prompt the opponent’s wider players to drift into the midfield leaving City to exploit in the wider areas gaps left. With players like Mahrez, Sterling and Foden on the wings, city will then punish you with these players who will then use the wings to bring in crosses into the box or even move with the ball into the box.

Midfield Activity.

City boasts one of the midfields in Europe with the likes of creative players Kevin De Bruyne, Bernado Silva and Ilkay Gundogan. They exploit the midfield and create problems for the opposition. De Bruyne makes long passes to the wings to exploit gaps left by the opposition’s wingbacks in their quest to maintain a balance in the midfield. With a pass completion rate of 82%, De Bruyne will always pose a threat to the opposition team. With or without the ball the midfield is a threat while recovering the ball and being able to rearrange swiftly and launching a counter. City holds most of the ball and establish control making them ranked at number one in terms of ball possession in the league at an average of 62% on ball possession. This is achieved by how they start their balls from the back with their fullbacks drifting in the midfield creating a surplus of options and with their crisscross passes hitting their opponents.

Pep then will switch to a 4-1-4-1 from a 4-3-3 formation with Rodri or Fernandinho playing ahead of the defense line but may drift into the defense letting the full backs drift forward when attacking. The four-man midfield will then combine with the fullbacks and deploy two of the wingers upfront to the attacking line. With Pep’s squad rotation helps the team utilize its surplus of players as Pep’s team B can arguably finish top four of the Premier League. Squad depth helps Pep in his tactics.

Up next we’ll tackle how Pep sees the football pitch. See you then.