Match date: 6 December 2014

With Chelsea losing to Newcastle earlier in the day, Manchester City had the chance to close the gap to just three points between themselves and the leaders.

Even with their big Champions League match against Roma approaching in the midweek, Pellegrini opted to start key players like Agüero, Yaya Toure, Nasri, and Navas despite the quartet starting the last two matches in the week. Nasri lined up behind Agüero in a 4-4-1-¼-2-3-1.

Everton have struggled for much of the season, failing to find the form that saw the Liverpool club fighting for a Champions League spot until the very end of the season last year. Martinez opted to start Tony Hibbert at right back, with Seamus Coleman in front of him in a 4-2-3-1.

Space in Midfield

The midfield battle was an interesting one, especially for two sides and two managers that look to control that area of the pitch. For all of that intent to control the midfield, there was a significant amount of space available for each midfield to operate, and it was largely due to how the sides lined up. As mentioned above, Manchester City were in a 4-4-1-1, with Nasri in front of Yaya Toure and Fernando, while Everton were in 4-2-3-1, with Eto’o in front of Besic and Barry. This meant one of two scenarios as the match went on, either one of the holding midfielders would have space with the opposition’s holding players maintaining their shape and the advanced midfielder only able to mark on of the holding players as we see below with Yaya Toure.

The other was the the holding players would push too high and allow the space between them and the back four to open up which the likes of Eto’o, Toure, and Nasri were able to get into. Below you can see a good example of Eto’o, who had another good game in that role for Everton, receiving a ball behind Toure and Fernando.

Although both used it different, the space between the midfield and back four became important for Eto’o and Nasri. Eto’o stayed central and got behind Yaya Toure and Fernando, while Nasri would get behind Barry and Besic, but would drifted from side to side, which we’ll talk about later. Eto’o was much more keen on dribbling at Manchester City’s back four, while Nasri looked to distribute from the hole.

Both were arguably their team’s best performers on the day. They both kept the ball moving well. Nasri was able to dictate Manchester City’s play from that area of the field while Eto’o was much more of a link between the midfield and Lukaku, who he worked well with and created Everton’s best chance for with a good ball that Lukaku smashed, only for Joe Hart to make a good save on.

No Agüero, Manchester City Play Wide

Agüero’s early injury significantly changed the way Manchester City were able to play and obviously has long term implications, considering just how good Agüero has been this year. Pellegrini chose to replace Agüero with Pozo, with Dzeko just coming back from a calf strain. The 18 year old Pozo obviously did not have the type of impact that Agüero had on Manchester City’s play. When Everton had good periods of possession in Manchester City’s half it was in part due to the home side not having a good outball. One of Agüero’s qualities is that when Manchester City are forced to defend deep, they always have a willing Agüero running in the halfspaces on the outsides of the opposing centre backs. Pozo did not offer this option, so it was hard for Manchester City to get out of their defensive shape at times.

With Agüero, Manchester City can play within the width of the penalty area, with the striker often playing on the outsides of the centre backs and having the ability to get a lot of touches on the ball in the penalty area. Without Agüero, they played into the wide areas much more often. Nasri, as mentioned above, got on the ball a lot and rather than try to link up with Pozo, his first option was always to play out wide to either Milner and Navas or Clichy and Zabaleta.

It was an effective tactic for Manchester City, especially down the left side of their attack where Tony Hibbert looked well off the pace against Milner and Clichy was able to push Coleman deep, making him rather anonymous in Everton’s attack. Nasri’s drifting into the wide areas also meant that Barry and Besic were often pulled out of the middle, which opened up space for Yaya Toure and Fernando to get on the ball and switch the point of attack well. When the ball was shifted out wide and cross was coming in, Pozo did show intelligent movement, especially when making near post runs and would have scored had it not been for an excellent save by Tim Howard.

Martinez Brings on Barkley, Osman

Early on in the second half, Martinez brought on Barkley for Besic, which changed Everton’s shape from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-1-4-1. It left Barry isolated against Nasri and, later, Lampard, but it allowed Barkley and Eto’o to link up well going forward. As mentioned earlier, there was plenty of space between the lines and Barkley took full advantage of this and with his direct running and ability on the ball, was probably the most dangerous of any player on the pitch in those positions.

The young Englishman created a good amount of chances for Everton, was good at winning the ball back, and spread the play well when Everton had possession in Manchester City’s half. He was wrongly booked for simulation after Lampard made about the same amount of contact with Barkley as Jagielka did on Milner for Manchester City’s penalty.

While Barkley was an excellent spark coming off the bench, Martinez opted to bring on Leon Osman for Kevin Mirallas late on in the match. Mirallas certainly did not have his best game for the Toffees, but he can create something out of nothing, as he did against Tottenham in Everton’s last match. Osman never really got into the game as Everton pushed for an equaliser in the remaining minutes.

Conclusion

Rarely do these analyses include mention of the referee, but Andre Marriner had a significant impact on the match, with all his calls going against Everton, including the deciding penalty which was very soft.

It’s hard to say that Manchester City really deserved all three points. Aside from the penalty, they had the same number of shots on goal as Everton and both really created just the one very good chance; Lukaku’s and Pozo’s.

This closes the gap at the top for Manchester City to just three points, but sees Everton stay on just 18 points from 15 matches.