Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur arrived at the Etihad and comprehensively demolished them. But with Guardiola's men enduring a staggering loss of form, Adam Clery examines the game and shows why it was actually Ange Postecoglu's team (and in particular James Maddison) who should be getting all the attention after this game.
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00:00Right, okay, obviously I have seen the game. That was just a funny bit I was doing for
00:05you on the internet. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Anyway, Manchester City here, Tottenham Hotspur here,
00:10and the one thing I have seen constantly said, written, spoken, whatever, about this match
00:15is about this lot. What's happening in Man City? What's going wrong there? Has Pep Guardiola's
00:20head fell off? Et cetera, et cetera. But no, that's not what this game is about in my opinion.
00:25It's far more interesting what Spurs did. So first things first, it was two 4-3-3s but
00:31executed in a very different way, and the most important thing to say is that Tottenham
00:35Hotspur f***ing brilliant. Man City did just concede four goals to Sporting Lisbon, so
00:40yes we have seen that before, but it was a very different game to this one there. They
00:44were dominant, they probably should have been miles ahead, they got hit on the counter a
00:48couple of times, missed a penalty. It was a bit of a weird result, but this, this wasn't.
00:55Now, admittedly, they did take a little while, sort of 10 or 15 minutes to settle. They'd
00:59made some alterations with Maddison, Kulishevski getting rid, Brendan Johnson, et cetera, and
01:03they were doing things slightly different with their full backs, which we're going to
01:07get into. Man City probably should have taken the lead in that time, but they didn't. And
01:12from there, you got an absolute masterclass in what this Tottenham team is really good
01:18at. I'm holding a burp in for that entire bit. And in fact, what we really saw with
01:23this was why Tottenham look 10 times better against a team like Man City than they do
01:28against the rest of the league. Because what they really want to do is invite you in onto
01:34the press to get you to leave space in behind, and then they play through you so quickly
01:38and so effectively that they just get in. And thusly, if you do get successfully baited
01:44into doing the press and then you don't match their intensity with their running, they will
01:50quite literally beat you 4-0. And yeah, Man City did both of those things. So here's a
01:57decent example of what I mean, right? Tottenham have just recovered the ball and they could
02:01now rush forward, try and play it up the line. They could hit long, they could try and get
02:06a bit of territory, but they can't see that opening, so they retain it. James Maddison,
02:10and this is going to be a theme of this video, begins to orchestrate things from very deep.
02:15You can see him pointing, they send it to the opposite side of the pitch. City very
02:19sort of lazily just sort of jog at it, provide half a press into that situation, and then
02:24Tottenham work it straight back to where it came from. And all they've really done here
02:27is like drag Man City around a little bit. It's gone up that end of the pitch, they've
02:32sort of jogged after it and it's come back. It's not really anything too clever. And yet
02:36just by doing that, in this one snap move, Solanke feigns to run in behind, City's back
02:41line panic a bit, drop off, he changes direction, and collects it short from Maddison playing
02:47a great brave ball through that press. Like in the space of a fraction of a second, they've
02:53gone from this situation, just going to allow you to see how everybody is nicely marked
02:57up and there's no space, to this situation. And there is a lot of space. And what's insane
03:04about this example from a Manchester City perspective, right, is that Dominic Solanke
03:08literally falls over. He face plants the ground when he gets the ball. Like that is a comedy
03:13pratfall. It should have one of those cartoon whoop noises. And yet, such as the lack of
03:19effort from Man City, he's able to pick himself back up, play the ball forward. And this is
03:24as close as any player gets to him in that situation. And throughout the game, there
03:29were just loads and loads of examples of situations like this, almost all involving James Maddison.
03:35But he was theoretically the left-sided midfielder in this three with Bissouma and Sarr. But
03:40if I show you Tottenham's average position map on top of all of this, you'll see it's
03:43actually not a three. They've actually got a proper double pivot between these two. And
03:49then Madison's just sort of here as well. And that's because he had this like, the temptation
03:54is to say a free roll, but it's not like a free roll. Like I show you his heat map and
03:59you'll see he's popping up pretty much everywhere, but it's all really focused in this left-hand
04:04space in their own buildup. And then again, in this left-hand half space when they're
04:08attacking. And while it was a fantastic performance from Madison, what you're actually seeing
04:12here is a bit of a master stroke from Postacoglu. Because if we just go back to the average
04:16position map and sort of divide a line, you'll see Tottenham are way more sort of focused
04:22on this side of the pitch. Like as if Tottenham are playing with a double pivot here, you'd
04:26expect Madison to sort of be in the 10 roll, but yet he's out on this left-hand side. Solanke,
04:30who obviously drops in off the front line, is dropping way more onto this left-hand side.
04:35And why do that? Well, because now Manchester City have to defend Son, Solanke and Madison
04:42with Foden, Lewis and Walker. Three players of which you could talk about the merits for
04:47a very, very long time, but from purely a defensive sense, not positionally great, not
04:52physically great, not particularly well-disciplined. This is a situation that Ange manufactured
04:58and used it to more or less, can I say have their pants down? Is that too old hat? Is
05:03that a bit, is that a bit Yadar? Because he did. But anyway, just to go back to Madison
05:07and show you how effective he was at this system that Ange was playing, right? This
05:11is his pass map as well as his heat map. And under normal circumstances for him, you'd
05:16look at that and think, oh, he's out of there. Because he's a creative player, he's a 10,
05:20he makes things happen. You want him getting into these areas of the pitch around the box,
05:24laying on chances for the runners, for the forwards, for all of this. But that was not,
05:29his job. He was to bait the press for Manchester City and allow them to play out quickly and
05:34effectively. Which is why so much of his work is absurdly in this sort of deep inside left
05:40area. And that's not to say, by the way, that the secret trick to beating Manchester City
05:45is just get a player in this area. Because zoom in, use that brain of yours. Look at
05:49how many of these passes are forwards. It's not enough just to have somebody circulating
05:54the ball around this area, baiting them in. The reason you have James Madison is because
05:58he's an incredible, incredible technical player who will hit those brave forward passes
06:05between defenders. Like, this is just a stunning example of how good he is at this job. Like,
06:09look how far back he has been forced to get on the ball. Man City have got four players
06:14here. This actually looks, by their standards in this game, a really aggressive, well-set
06:19press. And crucially, Madison could go back to the goalkeeper here, but you look at the
06:23options available to him, he'd have to just kick that long and they'd probably lose it.
06:27So instead, he trusts himself. He's got that confidence. He comes back into this crowded
06:31area. He wants to play out down the line. And just imagine, right, me and you were at
06:35that game together watching it. And I somehow have this ability to stop time. Obviously,
06:40this is not what I would end up using that for, but just it's hypothetical. Just imagine
06:43I did that. And I said, in 16 seconds time, Spurs are going to have this ball in Manchester
06:50City's six-yard box. Now, obviously, your first reaction to that would be to say, well,
06:54if you can stop time, Adam, then why are you ageing so badly? And why aren't you making
06:59more videos? Which are both absolutely fair comments. But if we got back to the football,
07:03you would then look at that and go, hmm, seems unlikely. But it does. It truly, truly does.
07:08James Madison takes all three of these players out of the equation with a quick ball through
07:13the middle of them. Ben Davies gets a little bit of luck, yes, but still plays the ball forward.
07:18And then two passes later, Tottenham are here. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but,
07:24but, while this does represent Ange winning a fairly major tactical battle against Guardiola,
07:30like in both the planning and the execution, he has done him a kipper. What I thought really made
07:36the difference in this match was Tottenham's players individually winning all their 1v1s.
07:42Every single Tottenham player on that pitch massively outworked their opposite number at
07:47Man City. Like there are some absolutely mind-bending numbers during the rounds at the
07:52minute, but these stats that I think I heard on, I'm going to say the Tottenham football show,
07:57the podcast, I think it was from there, they ran five kilometres more than Man City,
08:02which is a fairly substantial amount, but just sit down for this one. They made 297
08:09more intensive runs than Manchester City, which just taking all the outfield players as an average
08:16is 30 more each. That's like one per player every three minutes, or collectively as a team,
08:25they did another one than Man City every like 18 seconds. And it might all just sound like just
08:32mad numbers that don't really mean anything, but you can physically see that in almost all the
08:36goals. Like for the opener, Madison is covered here, he's marked by Gundogan, but he just
08:42lets him go. He points at him as he runs past and granted it's a brilliant ball,
08:47but that's not enough. You need to match that run. You can't just point and hope the other guy will
08:53pick it up. You need to have the intensity. Likewise, the second goal, this is a really
08:58good press from Tottenham. We've seen them this season, we know they love to go and do that,
09:01but the ball is just slightly loose and look at the body language in this still like Madison is
09:07the first one to react to that on the entire pitch. I'm just going to rewind this back right
09:13to the point where the ball is passed. Okay. So nobody knows what's going to happen yet.
09:16It's going to get picked up here. Why is that not Rico Lewis's ball? And then even for the finish
09:23on this, like it's a great pass from Sonnen, it's a beautiful little dink from Madison, but he's
09:28going to run from here to here. Like Walker can possibly make that up if he really tries. Akanji
09:34can step across Lewis and Stones can organise slightly better. And none of those four things
09:40happen. They all just sort of let him go. And it's every single player in this man's city squad is
09:45guilty of this. Like go back to the first goal. That is Bardial's ball if he wants it, but he
09:51instead just decides to meekly let it roll out of play. And Kuliszewski says, well, no, mate,
09:57actually, I'm going to fight you for that if you don't want it. The third goal is the worst though,
10:02because this is just a series of 50-50s in Spurs half and Kuliszewski wins them all.
10:08They've brought Nathan Ake on now, I presume for this exact reason. And yet Spurs just run it up
10:13the other end of the pitch. And as it's rolled back to Porro, this is your defensive shape.
10:19This is the room you've left on the edge of the box because you've only got this many players here.
10:26Why? Like it's not that hard. Like Tottenham wanted to have somebody in this space. And if we
10:30take it all the way back, Porro's like near his own goal. He's got to get past him and him and him
10:36and him. He's got to beat all of those with the intensity of his run. And he does. I might as well
10:42keep going. Why not? The fourth goal, obviously, everybody's had a really good laugh about Timo
10:46Werner roasting Kyle Walker. But is it even entirely his fault? No, it's the entire team.
10:53This is where Brennan Johnson starts the run from which he will score. Vardial is, yes,
10:58he is behind him and he does track back, but he cannot match that intensity. And then Gundogan,
11:04look at him here. He has a little look over his shoulder. He's got a couple of yards on him. He
11:08could maybe do something about it. And he does not. There is one man in this equation who displays the
11:15most amount of intensity in his running and desire to get into this position. And it is not a man
11:21wearing a Manchester City top. Tottenham got this game absolutely spot on from a tactical
11:27perspective. But as we've said a million times on this channel, that only ever gives you the chance
11:32of winning their individual application, their winning of 1v1s, their wanting it more made them
11:39beat them 4-0. Now, as for Manchester City, I may well do a video, another video on what's going
11:46wrong there. But let's have a little quick look at the specific problems in this game.
11:50So the main cut and thrust of the previous video was that, A, they're missing a lot of very big
11:54players who help them play they like to play, but also they're out of possession shape is really
12:00bad. Like, theoretically, this was them. It was a 4-3-3. Gundogan's sort of like the ball recycler,
12:06strong presence in the middle. And you've got sort of Lewis and Bernardo Silva and all this.
12:10But I'm just going to show you their average positions map. And I'm not joking. When I
12:16looked at this the first time, I felt genuinely upset. This is one of the weirdest things I have
12:25ever seen using this kind of data, right? This is the narrowest football team I have ever seen
12:32with all the width coming from two players who are badly, what's the word, cast in this role.
12:40Now, as I said at the beginning of this, City were actually the better side in the opening
12:44exchanges, right? And this still comes from that good spell of possession. The good as they looked
12:50in the entire game. And if we just look at this, right, this is a huge problem. Now you can see
12:56the 2-3-5 shape that we know they want to get into that they're very, very good attacking with.
13:02But there is a reason why most teams try and get into that shape by the stepping a centre
13:07back into the midfield or inverting a fullback. And that's because when you do it this way,
13:12this is Kyle Walker, your right back, and this is Vardiyol, your left back. All the width,
13:18all the width in the entire team, like look at this, all the width is coming from two defenders.
13:25The reason most teams never do this structure with these kinds of players is because when you
13:30lose the ball, you just then need your left back to scuttle over into this position or your centre
13:35back just to drop a couple of extra yards. Not two of your defenders who are defending your entire
13:41wide areas to get all the way back down the pitch. It's too much of a ordeal. And if you start
13:47looking at the goals, you can see where those gaps are. Like it's so easy now to get at Manchester
13:53City in these wide areas beside this build-up block because A, the defenders have got to come
14:00all the way back and B, the personnel in here, like Lewis, Silva, Gundawan, like who there is
14:07flying 50 yards to put a tackle in? Who there is bullying an opposition central midfielder? Like
14:12it's really like lightweight. Like even Gundawan, who is the physical presence in there, who is
14:18genuinely quite good in those situations. How many times have you seen him already in this video
14:24not doing that job? Basically, right, what I'm trying to say is that for reasons I do not
14:28understand, Pep Guardiola is currently asking Vardiyol and Walker or whoever plays in these
14:34wide positions to do way, way too much in terms of both attacking and defending and then not having
14:40a sort of suitable profile in the middle to cover for those gaps. Like I'm sure, I'm sure in his head
14:47something about this is supposed to work, but A, I can't see it and B, it isn't. So yes, bottom line,
14:55Tottenham were absolutely magnificent here and you should be heaping praise upon praise
15:00upon them for this performance, but it does also feed into this whole Manchester City are in the
15:06toilet thing at the minute and yeah. But whether you are a Tottenham fan or a Man City fan or a
15:11neutral who just likes the kind of stuff I make, please let us know what you made of this game
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15:52and I miss the sunshine, goodbye.