City relieves United: “Guardiola realizes blind attack no longer works” | Premier League

Manchester City has actually taken the lead on stocking feet, but their advance is downright impressive. They haven’t lost a game since November 21.

After that 2-0 defeat against Tottenham, Manchester City were 13th. Since that match, it has barely received 3 goals, one of which against fourth division Cheltenham.

That match against Spurs was a breaking point for Guardiola. They took 2 pure countergoals there – admittedly against the most cynical team in the Premier League – and that was the last straw for Guardiola. Enough now, he thought.

So it is that defense is the strength of Manchester City this season. Defensive quickly sounds negative, but it certainly is not, because City has lost little of its attacking power. You still see the same infiltrations and patterns. Even without a striker, they still score 2-3 goals per match.

But City no longer uses blind pressure and always keeps at least 3-4 men behind the ball. All for fear of the many goals on the counter that they took at the beginning of the season.

You often hear: Guardiola has started playing football more pragmatically. But – and it was journalist Jonathan Wilson who first pointed this out – Guardiola has always been a pragmatic coach. He just wants to take prizes and in the past that was best by playing offensive football.

But after 4 years at City, he has noticed that blind attacks no longer work. Then Guardiola is pragmatic enough to realize: we have to do things differently. He is also not afraid to occasionally deliver an ugly match, like the 0-0 against Manchester United for example, a real dragon.

Guardiola had a hand in the past to constantly tinker with the composition of his defense. Now he seems to have found a solid royal couple with the duo Dias-Stones.

After that match against Tottenham, Guardiola has dropped Laporte, the man everyone said that City missed the title because of his absence.

Ruben Dias’ transfer was a bull’s eye. That is pure class, the finished product as a defender. He then put John Stones next to that, who had actually already been written off at this level.

Stones has always been praised for having such good feet as a defender. They were not used to them in England, with guys like John Terry and Rio Ferdinand. But he also kept making mistakes, which made everyone wonder, will that ever get out of his game? But now he has mirrored Dias and City has 2 top transfers, one of which has been 4 years on the shelf lag.

Manchester United had started to float a bit in recent weeks, but it has come down painfully against Sheffield United. That defeat was not even undeserved.

Solskjaer said after that match that their performance was at odds with what they had shown in recent months. But I think that is intellectually unfair. He should have said this result is at odds with what we have shown in recent months.

After all, United has won many games with the heels over the ditch: due to a deviated ball against Wolves, thanks to a masterclass by Pogba at Fulham (always difficult), at Sheffield it was also lucky. They were not performances like City’s in recent months.

So such a result as against Sheffield was never far away. We already saw it in the Champions League against Leipzig, so United is now in the Europa League.

Everyone still feels that this Manchester United lacks an identity. What exactly is Solskjaer’s philosophy? He changes approach every match. You could say that is also a kind of pragmatism.

But it is all too often Jeckyll and Hyde. You don’t know what face United will show. The consensus was: it is unbelievable that United is at the top, but how long will that take? Especially now that Liverpool seems to be getting back on track.

But about Liverpool and the other clubs in the top of the rankings (Leicester City, Tottenham and even West Ham United!) You can read more here tomorrow.

Aster Nzeyimana