How Manchester City Exploited the Defensive Positioning of PSG's Front Three
Defending with only seven players might not be possible in the modern game.
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Against Manchester City on matchday 5 of the UEFA Champions League, Mauricio Pochettino did exactly what everyone wanted him to do.
“Enough with trying to make three superstars press,” people said. “Who cares if they don’t want to? Accept the reality, do the pragmatic thing, and defend in a deeper block of seven. It’ll be solid enough and the benefits of leaving outlets free for the counter-attack will be enormous.”
Yeah…
It sounds nice in theory. The midfield three can shuttle over aggressively to help the fullbacks with overloads and block off any nearby options. Eventually, this will lead to a turnover and the mouth-watering trio of Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappé can attack acres of space.
Except, I’m not even sure that it sounds nice in theory. Right off the bat, you have to worry about how to defend the far side. As hard-working as your CM’s might be, it’s a lot to shuttle from flank-to-flank and cover all that horizontal space down a man for ninety minutes.
It only gets harder when you think about PSG’s opponent: Manchester City. Ever wonder why all those positional play diagrams tend to show the defending team in a 4-4-2?
It’s because the philosophy arose partly as a means to destabilize the most common defensive structure of the time (and still the most common defensive structure of today), which is — you guessed it — the 4-4-2.
In other words, someone like Pep Guardiola has specifically designed his system to produce numerical and positional superiorities in all relevant areas against a fully-manned defensive shape. If City already have the inherent tactical advantage against a block of eight, how much more of an edge will they receive if you take one player out of the second line?
Their 2-1 win over PSG answered that question rather comprehensively.
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City want to switch aggressively regardless of whether they’re facing “normal” opposition or not. Unless a rival defends in a back five, it can be very difficult to prevent someone like Riyad Mahrez from receiving near the touchline in plenty of immediate space.
A Neymar-Messi-Mbappé apologist could argue that having one of those three engaging out wide wouldn’t make much of a difference in the first clip. Indeed, it probably wouldn’t. PSG’s midfield does a good job tracking İlkay Gündogan. After that, it’s more about the Sky Blue’s quality in tight areas (and the movement of Bernardo Silva) than anything else.
But we’re just getting started.
A similar thing occurs in the second clip. Once again, PSG have the requisite numbers out wide to technically deal with what City are throwing at them, although Ander Herrera needs to get tighter to Gündogan. However, it’s the defending after the cross that interests me.
We already know that a wing-oriented block of seven can handle the initial attack. The problems arise when these players are asked to put out fires multiple times on both flanks. In this instance, PSG are exposed on the action following the first switch.
Taking a bird’s-eye view, we can see the vast distance Herrera needs to cover to provide help.
This forces the fullback to step out, opening up the channel, which City love to attack with their advanced central midfielders.
Raheem Sterling on the opposite wing is who we really want to be paying attention to though, as we already know that PSG will be ~ok structurally on the ball side.
Like the masters of spatial occupation that they are, City’s personnel have roughly stationed themselves in the five verticals of the football pitch: right wing, right halfspace, center, left halfspace, and left wing. PSG have to react to this reality; Idrissa Gueye goes to Oleksandr Zinchenko, leaving Raheem Sterling free. Achraf Hakimi can’t take the free man because left back Nuno Mendes has been called to Mahrez, creating a chain reaction that has made the interior of the box Achraf’s priority.
The only way to cover Sterling in the event of a cross is to have another person in that midfield line, tracking back to do the dirty work.
PSG are simply fighting the math of City’s football and, to a certain extent, the realities of the human body.
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If Herrera struggled to make up ground in the prior example, he’s fighting for his life in this one. Despite a solid sprint, he can’t stop Bernardo from floating into the channel under zero pressure and instead has throw himself into a heroic block.
It’s hard to overstate the amount of physical exertion it takes to barely contain an elite side like City when three players feel like defending is above them.
Tiredness and overwork lead to more subtle breakdowns:
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After attracting all of PSG’s midfield to one side of the pitch, a quick rotation of play finds Zinchenko free in the left halfspace. Although Achraf is primed for the duel, PSG have already lost this tactical battle.
The objective is not to have cover once the opposition has entered the box — the goal of good defense is to prevent penalty-area entries in the first place. If you allow a 1v1 with Sterling in real estate that can generate a spot kick, you no longer have the upper hand.
Such concerns were washed away for the briefest of moments when PSG took the lead in the 50th minute. For a second, it felt like all the defensive woes were worth it.
PSG’s star-studded trio were involved in a slick move that carved City apart. The encouraging thing was that it came from a set-possession sequence — an area where Pochettino has struggled to develop a coherent structure that optimizes for everyone.
The problem is that PSG didn’t have a ton of opportunities to replicate that sequence. 46% possession isn’t nothing, but that needs to be supplemented by a healthy dose of offensive transition to give Messi, Neymar, and Mbappé the opportunities they need to make a difference.
And that’s the thing. PSG barely threatened on the counter-attack all game. Having a bunch of top-class outlets is great, but assuming that inevitably leads to Messi going 1v1 with a defender jumps the gun. A team needs to first generate turnovers in order to transition, which can’t happen without the requisite numbers engaged in winning the ball.
So why didn’t PSG just try to have more possession? You’re telling me that would require pressing? Ah.
Anyway, Guardiola made the right change — brought off Zinchenko for Gabriel Jesus, ensuring better occupation of the defensive line and even more space for far-side runs — when his side went down and City came roaring back.
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It was a performance that patiently ran PSG’s midfield into the ground, held their defensive line in place, and ruthlessly exploited their lack of defensive numbers by spamming overloads out wide.
Sure, there are probably only a few teams in the world that can execute this blueprint at the level of City, but Messi, Neymar, and Mbappé weren’t signed to accomplish the impossible task of pumping Metz 7-0 — they were brought on board to conquer Europe’s best.
And, so far, it appears that they’re preventing the very thing that their presence was supposed to accomplish.