There were times during Pep Guardiola’s press conference following Manchester City’s 2-1 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers when it was difficult to decipher what he really felt about the performance.
“I’m sorry to disagree but I thought we played really, really good,” he said at one point, before explaining how difficult Wolves made the game by packing their box with defenders and breaking with pace. “That’s why I have the opinion that it’s an excellent performance,” he closed.
But there were other times when he acknowledged that City were “close to 0-2” and that “today, we were close to drawing and we were lucky to win the game”.
There is probably a bit of truth in it all. Lately, City have been playing well enough to win matches but have looked far from comfortable. There is a lot of good but plenty to be concerned about, too, and Guardiola managed to cover all of that during his insightful post-match analysis.
He explained the exact approach that he wants his teams to take against sides who field five defenders, defend deep and play on the break — tactics that are causing City problems and provoking some supporters to call for a different approach — but he also offered a glimpse into what he feels the alternative would be.
While the results have been good, and the late victory at Molineux especially satisfying — “the flavour of winning games this way is so nice,” Guardiola said — there is a bit of discontent with City’s performances.
Guardiola is picking players to make the games as safe as he can, no doubt influenced by Rodri’s season-long absence, but too often, the matches do not always look so assured. If they were fortunate to beat Wolves, they were doubly so against Fulham before the international break when Adama Traore could have scored a hat-trick.
“Against Fulham, maybe we didn’t attack much better than today but against Fulham, we lacked a bit of energy to recover the ball — it was not good,” he said on Sunday. “As a team, we go to the opponent (to press) — it doesn’t matter what happens and it doesn’t matter which area of the pitch it is — and in those terms today, we were much, much better.”
The ‘issue’ with City — if the only unbeaten team in England’s top-six tiers can have an issue — is that the players Guardiola picks in the middle of the pitch help them move the ball around well but are not especially good at recovering the ball when it is lost.
Ilkay Gundogan, Mateo Kovacic, Rico Lewis and, to a lesser extent, Bernardo Silva have struggled after seeing possession turned over in recent weeks, but they give the team a lot of the ball and a platform to win matches.
When teams sit so deep, a few ways of scoring become more important, which helps explain why City have scored 25 per cent of the league’s goals from outside the box; that is where their chances are, so that is what they have to deal with. On Sunday, Josko Gvardiol stepped up with a fine curling effort. Against Fulham, Kovacic and Jeremy Doku scored from outside the box.
“Teams play four in the back, (but) when they play against us they play five at the back, they have holding midfielders, not just close but holding hands with the central defenders,” Guardiola said as he stressed City “have to adapt”.
“So what do you need? Josko. Actions from the wingers, good cross, good shot. Be good in the small spaces. Without that, it’s difficult,” he added.
That, and set pieces, which City have struggled with, especially against Wolves until John Stones provided the exception with their 18th corner in the final minute. At another point in his press conference, Guardiola covered that.
“(You have to use) the talent of one player; look at Phil Foden when he came in. Phil arrived there with three or four runs, with incredible passes from Jack Grealish. And it’s always ‘almost, almost’, but this is what we have to do because you saw it, there are 11 players inside the box when we arrived at the byline, there’s no space. And after it’s free kicks, corners, individual actions like Josko has done again, you can break the game in this kind of way.”
That, though, is likely to be how a lot of City matches look in the coming weeks and possibly months.
Slovan Bratislava in the Champions League and then Fulham in the league started with four defenders, conceded early chances and then switched. Other teams, including Wolves, went with five from the start, despite their usual approach of four. So City will have to rely on individual talent (although their wingers have lacked an end product this season), set pieces (that threat has been negligible, too) and long-range shots.
Is there not an alternative? A way to embrace the counter-attacking game by picking more direct players than Gundogan, Lewis and Kovacic and trying to blow teams away?
No.
“The solution is how we played today,” Guardiola insisted. “It’s to stay a lot in the positions you have to be — this is really, really important — and not become crazy, otherwise they make transitions and after that, they punish you. We were close to 0-2.
“Be patient and be patient. Good actions from the wingers, making dribbles, good runs from the people in front. If one player can dribble in small spaces, shoot and score a goal, it’s the only way.”
He added: “We cannot attack in a naive way, because after that the pace that they have… you saw with Adama Traore in the last game, or all the strikers who have pace. You have to control it but to do what we have done today is the best way.”
For Guardiola, there is no real alternative.
“The other option is to say, ‘OK, you don’t come? I don’t come (either). We’ll stay with Ederson‘. And then who decides to come? That will be so difficult for our spectators. Imagine Ruben Dias has the ball (in defence) and says, ‘OK I don’t attack’, and stays there. What would happen? I don’t know what would happen but it would be a problem.”
There is a hypothetical middle ground where the opposition team might be tempted to attack, leaving spaces to be exploited, but from an ideological standpoint, Guardiola is not going to do that — he wants to have the ball — and from a logical standpoint, the opposition are probably not going to attack too much anyway. Besides, you can hardly create spaces in deep defences just by picking direct players. If you try to force things, you will only make things harder.
“Now because we won it’s easy to say to have patience,” Guardiola said. “When you are 1-1 and you play like that you make actions that are more… not the right decisions. And after what happens? You defend the transition.”
As one half-time press box conversation surmised, it is like having a curtain that does not quite cover the whole window. What is the solution? To pull it as far as possible, or to let more light in?
(Top photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
