Match date: 2 October 2013

Under Pep Guardiola thus far, Bayern Munich have lost just one match, against Dortmund in the German Super Cup, including preseason friendlies and and Summer cup matches. They enter the Manchester City match playing good football under their new manager and the Citizen’s marked perhaps their biggest test thus far in the competitive season.

With Manuel Pellegrini, Manchester City were hoping that his experience in the Champions League would help propel the club to be European giants.

Interestingly, Pellegrini opted for a 4-4-2 like he did against Manchester United in the derby, with the only changes from that side being the full backs and this was largely the reason for how the match played out.

4-4-2 v 4-1-4-1

Last year when Pellegrini’s Malaga played Borussia Dortmund in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, he deployed a fluid 4-4-2 and as mentioned, he did so against Manchester United in the derby with that match yielding a positive result. However, against Bayern Munich and Pep Guardiola, it had to be expected that City’s two midfielders would be outnumbered in the middle and that City would conceded possession, as they did.

A 4-4-2 could have worked better for Pellegrini and City if one of either Edin Dzeko or Sergio Agüero (the more likely) had dropped on Philipp Lahm when Bayern were in possession of the ball to create a 3v3 situation in midfield. However, neither of the City strikers dropped quickly onto Lahm, whereas a player like David Silva, who was only fit enough for the bench, would have naturally been playing a bit off the the City striker and been able to put immediate pressure on Lahm when City were without the ball. You can see in the picture below that Agüero is not even looking for Lahm despite Bayern being in possession.

The lack of pressure on Lahm, who was playing a very deep defensive midfielder role, usually right in between the centre backs a la Sergio Busquets, allowed Bayern to outnumber City in midfield allowing Lahm, Kroos, and Schweinsteiger to play around Yaya Toure and Fernandinho and distribute the ball freely, with the Bayern trio completing 95% of their passes, with Kroos misplacing just one of his attempted passes.

Another key was Nasri’s positioning on the left. He is a player that enjoys drifting inside, and again this worked to good effect against Manchester United in the derby by allowing Kolarov to overlap well, but against Bayern Munich, Nasri drifted inside when City were on the ball, but was left without a real role when City were out of possession. He neither came inside enough to help Yaya Toure and Fernandinho with Bayern’s midfield three, nor did he push wide enough onto Rafinha to limit the Brazilian from getting forward and keep him from having a greater influence on the match. The Brazilian back attempted and completed the most passes in the match as he was constantly open for play to be switched to him and allowed Bayern a good pressure relief pass from the middle throughout the match.

Bayern’s Phenomenal Pressing, Possession

There were questions when it was announced that Pep Guardiola would take over Bayern Munich about how much he would change the style of play at Bayern and even more questions were asked with Bayern having won the Bundesliga in record fashion as well as the Champions League. Despite it being early in his reign, Bayern Munich are much less direct than they were last year, keeping the ball well, sometimes for defensive purposes, and being patient. Perhaps the most significant change from last year though is the fervent pressing that Pep has brought with him. It was certainly an aspect of Pep’s Barcelona that defined them and its absence under Tito Vilanova was one of the reasons that Barcelona did not reach similar heights last year as they had over the previous years.

Against Manchester City, however, Bayern Munich showed just how important and effective pressing can be. They showed their intent right from the first whistle as Thomas Müller pressed City’s centre backs, with the Bayern midfield pushing forward in support and the defensive line pushing higher up the pitch. The high line could have been exploited by Manchester City, but it allowed the German side to squeeze the ball quickly whenever Manchester City got the ball and resulted in either a clean tackle or for the City player to dispossess the ball and allow a Bayern player to recover the ball.

Notice above how many of Bayern’s tackles and recoveries occurred in Manchester City’s half; a result of the pressing was the game being played primarily in City’s defensive half. The third goal was the direct result of pressing as Toni Kroos won the ball within City’s half and was able to play Robben into a one-on-one with Nastasic.

Pellegrini’s Lack of Changes

At one point, Gary Neville noted in his commentary that if Manuel Pellegrini were English, the media would be all over him for having played a 4-4-2 in Europe against a Pep Guardiola side and in a way, he is spot on with that criticism. As mentioned before, City were outnumbered in midfield due to the fact that neither of City’s strikers were dropping to Philipp Lahm when Bayern were in possession. Pellegrini certainly could have an adjustment on the field and asked Agüero to always find and pressure Lahm when City were not in possession of the ball, but the change did not seem to come from the touchline and based on Pellegrini’s first personnel change, it seems that he did not think that the need to add a body in midfield was a necessity; City’s first change was Alvaro Negredo on fro Edin Dzeko, which made little sense as Negredo, like Dzeko and Agüero, was not dropping onto Lahm when City were out of possession.

With David Silva only fit for 25 minutes, Pellegrini had a number of different options available to him to try to get back into the game in midfield. Nasri was drifting infield already and could have played the number 10 that Silva did when he came on, and with his versatility, James Milner could have played on the left side of Manchester City’s midfield and his work rate certainly would have kept Rafinha at bay a bit better. He could have perhaps taken Nasri and a striker off, replaced Nasri with Milner and introduced Javi Garcia into the match, allowing Yaya Toure to push higher up the pitch into the number 10 role. However, the ideas seemed lacking and it wasn’t until after Bayern had scored their 3 goals that Pellegrini had the changes, bringing on Silva and Milner for Nasri and Agüero.

From that point, however, City grew into the game and asked more questions about Bayern’s defensive abilities, with City’s only goal assisted by Silva. This was also one of the only times when Bayern’s pressing was lackluster and allowed City to play quickly to Silva and then Negredo.

Conclusion

A really poor game from Manchester City and Manuel Pellegrini, who was in part brought in because he has had more success in the Champions League than Roberto Mancini, however, on the night, he looked to be lacking the tactical insight necessary to manage against the best sides in the world.

Bayern’s pressing was really top class, allowing them to control the space in the match as well as control the ball, a combination that is hard to beat.

I thought I would include just this small clip from the match that just shows Bayern’s ability in possession and ability to win the ball back quickly, but I cannot embed it because of copyright claims so I leave you with the link: http://youtu.be/pHCAxJLj_1I