Match date: 18 February 2014

Two of the most free-scoring teams in the Champions League meet in the first round of the knockout stages. Combined they had a total of 228 goals coming into the match. Both Manchester City and Barcelona have new managers, both of whom are from South America. Pellegrini’s time at Manchester City has seen them play more exciting football than under Roberto Mancini and he has, for most of the league campaign, played a variation of a 4-4-2. Against Barcelona, however, he sensibly switched to a 4-4-1-1 meaning that Fernandinho and Yaya Toure, as he did against Chelsea in the FA Cup at the weekend, would sit deeper with the anticipation that Barcelona were going to have majority of the ball.

Barcelona Overload

Under Tata Martino, Barcelona have played a bit more direct than they had under Pep Guardiola. Upon his appointment, he talked about the need for variation in Barcelona’s attack, but leading up to this match, he talked a lot about how possession would determine the tie. Barcelona’s most played XI this season has included Alexis Sanchez and Pedro on either side of Messi, but because of the nature of the match, Martino opted to include another midfielder in Cesc Fabregas rather than a more expansive winger. This meant that with Cesc, Iniesta, and Xavi, Barcelona could still outnumber the Manchester City midfield in the middle while allowing Sergio Busquets to drop alongside his centre backs to allow Barcelona a numbers-up situation in their build up against David Silva and Alvaro Negredo.

Cesc and Iniesta were very fluid in their movement on the left side of Barcelona’s attack. In last year’s campaign, there were times when the two would seemingly get in one another’s way on the pitch. This year, however, Cesc seems to have more freedom in his movement, much like he did while he was at Arsenal, and something that he commented about not having under Guardiola and Vilanova. Against Manchester City, numerous times, Cesc would leave his central midfield position and drift forward to play at a number 9 or drift to the right to give Barcelona a numbers-up situation on the right, the side they played down the most throughout the match. The combinations of Iniesta to Fabregas and Fabregas to Iniesta were the most played in the match.

Despite the amount of possession that Barcelona were able to maintain outside of Manchester City’s penalty area, they were lacking penetration, which is credit to Manchester City’s defending, but also because both Jordi Alba and Dani Alves, with the latter playing more freely following Demichelis’ red card, not making as penetrative of runs as they have in the past. Pellegrini opted to play Jesus Navas on the right, which kept Jordi Alba a bit further back and with Iniesta drifting inside, he would have been against both Navas and Zabaleta in his attempts to get forward. On the left, Pellegrini played both Clichy and Kolarov in front of him which meant that Alves’ runs forward, in the first half especially, were tracked well. On the other side, however, Martino was obviously wary of Manchester City’s ability to counter-attack and seemed to instruct his side to play cautiously as to not be too exposed when they lost possession, meaning that the Barcelona full backs were more inclined to stay a bit deeper rather than look to make penetrative runs.

City’s Defense and Lack of Outlet

In their recent two matches against Chelsea, one in the league and one in the FA Cup, they showed two different defensive approaches. They were exposed in the league match, allowing Chelsea’s players too much space and time to turn, but in the FA Cup, marked much tighter. Throughout the match against Barcelona, they defended in a low block, absorbing the pressure and allowing Barcelona to play just outside of their penalty area. very early on, they looked to press Barcelona high up the pitch, but Barcelona’s quick passing was able to bypass the pressing and force City into their defensive shape. Below you can see four City players surrounding Cesc Fabregas and closing down his near options, but, as Cesc did here to Pique, Barcelona were able to play away from Manchester City’s pressing quite easily and put them on the back foot.

For much of the first half and the early stages of the second half, Manchester City were looking content in their abilities to keep Barcelona from getting in behind. There wasn’t too much pressure from Fernandinho and Yaya Toure on the midfielders as they could easily play around the two, especially with Iniesta coming infield to give Barcelona 4 v 2 in the central areas, but when Barcelona looked to play the ball into one of the forward players, Messi, Sanchez, or the likes of Fabregas, Manchester City’s defenders were good at getting tight and, at times, intercepting the ball in front.

Despite his red card, Demichelis was performing relatively well defensively on Messi. When Barcelona had possession of the at the feet of either Pique, Busquets, or Mascherano in their defensive half, looking to play the ball into midfield, Demichelis would generally track Messi as he dropped deep so as not to allow Barcelona an even greater numerical advantage in the middle. In theory this would allow Sanchez to make a run into the space that Demichelis vacated, but Clichy tracked the Chilean very well throughout the match, not allowing him to make a penetrative run like this.

Manchester City’s problem however, was not their defensive play up until the red card, but it was their inability to find an outlet once they got on the ball. There were numerous times that Demichelis, in particular, would receive the ball with much more time than he thought, and would play a poor pass forward only to find a Barcelona play or try to play the ball to Kolarov, only for it to run out of touch. This had a lot to do with Barcelona’s press, but also had to with with the movement of Silva and Negredo and the defensive approach of Kolarov and Navas.

With Barcelona’s overload in the central areas, it was always going to be hard for Manchester City to find Silva and Negredo for the initial pass from the back, so tactically, the area of the pitch that City could have found space was in the wide areas with Kolarov and Navas. However, both the Manchester City wingers were focused on their defensive tasks of keeping Alves and Alba underwraps and were not quick enough in transition to give Manchester City outlets needed to get forward. Surprisingly, City’s best chance in the first half came through the centre of the field when Busquets was slow in trying to intercept a pass from Kompany to Silva, who was then able to turn and play Negredo in between Pique and Mascherano only for the latter to tackle well and play the ball away.

Red Card Changes

There is certainly a debate to be had about Demichelis’ decision making that led to his red card and Messi’s scored penalty as well as the decision for Kompany to drop off and allow Messi to position himself onside for Iniesta to play him in. Whether right or wrong, a red card and penalty came and it certainly changed the tie. Pellegrini switched to a 4-4-1 and brought on Nasri and Lescott. Both Nasri and Silva like to drift inside and with four in midfield, it allowed Manchester City to match up, numbers wise, against Barcelona’s numbers in midfield and allowed Manchester City to  have more possession and some good opportunities going forward, with Silva getting a really good opportunity that tested Valdes well. The narrow midfield also forced Clichy and Zabaleta to get forward to provide the width in City’s attacks with Zabaleta played the ball to Silva that saw him test Valdes.

Immediately following the red card, Barcelona attacked with much more pace and looked more likely to score a second than they did as the match went on and City grew into playing just 10 men. Following the change of Nasri for Kolarov, Alves became significantly more important and had more and more chances to get forward, eventually leading to his 90th minute goal after a good pass from Neymar.

Conclusion

Manchester City looked very good up until the red card; they defended well and though didn’t get forward often, they looked threatening when they did. Pellegrini was clearly frustrated following the match, blaming the referee and suggesting he was making up for mistakes he made in a previous Barcelona fixture he refereed in the Champions League, but it was really just that one moment of that changed the match and swung it in Barcelona’s favour.

Barcelona performed as they have in the away games of the knockout stages over the last few years under Guardiola, Vilanova, and now Martino. They were conservative in possession, despite amassing almost 800 passes, an amount that a team has never lost with. The full backs were slow to venture into the final third and the inclusion of an extra midfielder in Cesc Fabregas rather than a winger like Neymar or Pedro showed the intentions to keep the tie tight.

The match at Camp Nou should be a bit more open with Manchester City needing at least two goals to stay in the tie and with that in mind, it will be interesting to see if Pellegrini opts to go back to a 4-4-2 with Aguero possibly fit.