Preview

Match date: 24 October 2012

Manchester City were knocked out of the group stages last year and after giving up a lead against Real Madrid and drawing Bourissa Dortmund, they need to get a win against Ajax. It doesn’t look like David Silva will be fit enough to feature, but as Christian Poulsen pointed out, Manchester City have plenty of other world class players.

Ajax have won the European Cup 4 times, include three consecutive wins in the early 1970s, and were a little unfortunate to miss out on the knockout stages last year after losing out on second place in their group on goal difference. Ajax will play quality football and their key man will be Christian Eriksen, who is only 20, but has been involved in rumours over the last few transfer windows about a big money move to a top European club.

1st Half

The most noticeable change to Ajax’s formation was that their top goal scorer from last year, Siem de Jong, was not playing as a striker but rather playing deeper in midfield. It has been something Ajax has done after bringing in Ryan Babel in on a free transfer this past summer. Babel has been playing as a centre forward, but Frank de Boer placed him on the left tonight. With de Jong in midfield and Babel on the left, Christian Eriksen was deployed as the highest forward through the middle of the park, something of a false 9.

As the game went on, Eriksen took up very smart positions between the midfield and Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott, leaving them with no one to pick up at times. Eriksen was given a very free role as he drifted into midfield and side to side and this caused another problem for Manchester City’s back four as they had trouble picking up the runs of de Jong and Lasse Schöne from the midfield. Eriksen’s movement also allowed Ryan Babel to come infield even when he did not have the ball at his feet.

Ajax played impressively, dominating possession for the first 20 minutes and it was Eriksen that first tested Joe Hart after very good build up starting a great ball from Alderweireld to Blind. The ability of both of Ajax’s centre backs to play the ball out of the back well really helped build their opportunities. The wing backs, Blind and van Rhijn, would get very wide and this expansive play was also key to their ability to control the ball. Eriksen had a second effort that also worried Hart and it was again from great build up, but it was Manchester City that scored the first goal and it was against the run of play. Micah Richards played a great ball through to James Milner who was then patient in finding Samir Nasri coming in from the left, who then curled it to the far post.

Ajax settled quickly though and Manchester City changed their shape a bit, for the first time on the night, to more of a 4-4-2 with Milner on the right and Nasri and the left, which was a bit of a strange decision as Clichy, while doing a good job at it, had been left in a 2 v 1 for a lot of the night with Sana and van Rhijn. As half time approached, City again looked different. Having not scored a second goal by playing with two strikers, it seemed they then just wanted to get into halftime with the score 1-0 as Ajax continued to keep the ball very comfortably. At times it looked like a 4-5-¼-4-1, with Džeko dropping to the left side of midfield and Nasri in support of Agüero.

As with a lot of the night, Ajax continued to get a lot of freedom down the outside and were able to equalize when van Rhijn was all alone on the right side as Nasri had pushed very narrow. De Jong played a first time ball out to him and made a run into the penalty area and van Rhijn crossed to about the top of the box for de Jong to equalize.

2nd Half

Manchester City came out brightly in the second half, creating a chance within the first ten seconds. It was not only that though, when Ajax got on the ball, City were pressing much better and higher up the pitch than in the first half. After a bit of ebb and flow to the game, Ajax struck again, this time from a corner kick which was a bit of a surprised considering the height and power of English side. Eriksen whipped in a good ball to the near post that was met by Moisander. This brings up a good sub topic though and that is zonal marking. I was watching this match on Sky Sports and after the goal was scored, Gary Neville didn’t really put any blame on Joleon Lescott for not winning the ball, but rather put the blame on the zonal marking that City were playing.

Rafael Benitez is probably the most known in England for zonal marking as he brought it with him to Liverpool during his reign and I can remember the criticisms then as well, but Liverpool weren’t known for conceding goals from set pieces during his time, but every time they did, questions would be asked about it. I’ve never heard a pundit question a man-marking system even when a defender fails to in a ball. Twice under Benitez, Liverpool conceded the fewest amount of goals from set pieces in the league and three other times they were in the top four.

In this particular instance, Lescott failed to do his job well. When the ball enters your zone, you need to attack it rather than wait for it to come to you and Lescott did not perform that task well and so he failed to win the ball. Zonal marking allows for defenders to concentrate solely on winning the ball rather than sticking with their man and getting blocked out by players on the other team.

So at 2-1 down, Roberto Mancini decided it was time to change his team’s system. He brought on Kolarov for Lescott and switched to a 3-5-2 with Kolarov and Milner playing as wing backs. This made Toure, who already wasn’t having as much influence on the game, drop back alongside Barry, with Nasri supporting Džeko and Agüero. With the system that Ajax had been playing the rest of the night, with Eriksen acting as a false 9, floating in between the centre backs and midfielders, there were times when Kompany and Lescott were left covering no one and with the late runs of de Jong and Schöne from midfield already a problem, it was a bit odd to play with three centre backs. Instead of having extra support in midfield, Mancini seemed to think it best to put another player at the back who would be generally useless there, especially since that player was Clichy who appeared to not having a clue what to do in a centre back role.

The back three didn’t last long though as the confusion of Clichy and the current poor form of Kompany were exploited as Eriksen scored a third goal for Ajax after Schöne won the ball back deep in City’s defensive third off of Gareth Barry. Clichy’s positional sense was again lacking in his new position when just three minutes later Sana was given a one on one with Hart after Ajax again pressed well and won the ball back deep in City’s third.

Džeko had two very good opportunities to pull one back for City, the first coming after he brought a long ball Milner down well with his chest. Vermeer, however, made a very good save to keep City at 1. His second chance came after Mancini went back to tweaking his system, bringing on Carlos Tevez for Barry and reverting to a back four with Clichy now appearing at right back and Milner back to holding next to Toure. Džeko was able to round Vermeer who appeared to get a bit of a touch on the ball as Džeko passed and then saved well to deny City another goal.

The next quarter of an hour saw Mancini bring on Mario Balotelli leaving City with four strikers, not including Nasri, to try to at least get a draw.

What Manchester City Did Wrong and Ajax Did Right

Micah Richards has come out and said that the players don’t understand Mancini’s three man defense system, but surely at this level, especially if Gary Caldwell works well in it, you should be able to do well in it. Mancini has said something similar in the day following the match and I agree that they should be able to understand the system, however, I feel that it wasn’t the right decision to use it against the system Ajax was using. With Eriksen playing in that false 9 role, it was senseless to have three centre backs as it leaves three players at the back with little to do and requires a lot of communication to figure out who would pick up Eriksen and the late runs of de Jong and Schöne.

City also failed to press well. They started the second half well, pressing more and higher up the pitch, but it didn’t last long and they reverted to allowing Ajax to play out of the back and work their triangles well.

Playing with Eriksen in the role that he was, I think, worried City’s centre backs. City weren’t used to playing against a false 9 type role and it may have caused a dip in their concentration levels as Eriksen would drift back into midfield a lot and from side to side.

Stray Observations

City’s side cost 68 times as much as the side Ajax put out which included six players that came through their famed academy.

Any City supporters want to give some insight on 17 year old George Evans who appeared on City’s bench?

Any Ajax supporters care to explain why there was a flag with cult leader and conspirer of murder Charles Manson on it?