Manchester City Vs Brighton 2-1: Analysis

Manchester City recorded their 21st win in a row at home, a new PL record overtaking Manchester United’s record of 20 PL home wins in a row. 

City started the game very well by scoring 2 in the opening 20 minutes with goals from Alvarez (7) and Haaland (19). 

Man City: Principals of play 

Attacking 

• Intent - every action had intent. 

• Overload midfield 

• 1 v s Isolation Doku 

• Quality on the ball

Defending

• Aggressive pressing 

• No space between lines 

• Narrow midfield 

• Allow Brighton no territory

One of the main things that was obvious in the first 20 minutes was city’s intent. They had desire and purpose and intent in every single action - passing, shooting, dribbling, tackling, movement. 

Pressing 

City pressed very aggressively and often only left akanji back to defend as a sweeper with every other play high into the attacking 3rd of the pitch, not allowing Brighton out of their defensive 3rd. 

When Brighton had the ball, the city players would crowd the edge of the box and man mark Baleba and Gross to stop any play through the middle- something Brighton usually do to great effect. Dunk / Igor saw very little of the ball and had few options even when they did get the ball. Dunk is one of Brighton’s best passers of the ball and often starts attacks / new phase of play with his line breaking passes into midfield. The only time dunk did manage to get a good pass into midfield Brighton went to the other end and scored there goal on 71 minutes through Fati. 

However city didn’t allow this to happen, Haaland, Alvarez, Foden, Silva and Doku and often Stones would push extremely high up the pitch and force Steele to play the ball to a defender on the edge of the box under immediate pressure. This example taken from the second half shows exactly how city set up to stop Brighton getting the ball into the midfielders. Brighton are very good at luring teams in to press the defensive players - dunk, van de hecke or igor and then creating a spare man playing 2/3 quick passes and then hitting teams quickly on the break with the speed and ability of Mitoma, Fati, Pedro on the attack. 

Attacking 

Attacking wise City loaded up brightons half with players and the rotation of the midfielders was very good. John Stones started in CM alongside Rodri and was key to the way city played. He was moving around and rotating with other players allowing the spaces in the middle to open up for Silva and Foden to get on the ball. He would drift out wide and higher up the pitch than you would usually expect from Stones so that he could intercept or tackle the Brighton players as soon as the ball left city’s posession. 

Here John Stones is taking up the RM position left by foden who is inside winning back the ball. 

Gvardiol and Walker pushed very high to create some width and cause Brighton problems making the pitch as wide as possible. Shown below city have every man in front of the ball other than Akanji trying to get a 3rd goal to kill off the game. For the first 30 minutes Brighton couldn’t get a touch on the ball and struggled to be effective when they did get posession off City. 

Jeremy Doku on the left side of the attack caused James Milner all sorts of problems and provided the assist for Alvarez’s opener. He was aggressive and had that intent to drive at Milner every time he got the ball at his feet. He registered 5 successful dribbles in the game and 1 assist. He brings a different element to city’s attack making them more dynamic and less reliant on the midfield players to break lines. His directness and speed is a nightmare to defend against and he has one of the highest dribble rates in Europe. Doku is in the top 10 best dribblers in Europe currently with 3.3 dribbles per game. 

Possession

When in possession city rarely panic or give the ball away. Rodri is key to their possession as he is so intelligent on the ball. He often will receive the ball on the half turn or under pressure and will bounce the ball straight back to the CB or winger it came from. While it can sometimes seem unproductive or just an easy pass, if relieves the pressure off the team. By creating a bounce back it means the player trying to press has to make a decision each time it happens, do they press the ball, the bouncer or the receiver of the ball. If they get too tight Rodri spins and breaks the lines, if there not tight he plays a simple ball back to the passer and they then move the ball again elsewhere. Rodri vs Brighton had a pass accuracy of 93.2%, completing 82 passes and having 97 touches in the game. He is also the PL best passer this season with an average 99 passes PG and 95% pass completion rate. 

The bounce ball also helps to pull players out of shape. Brighton are very good at keeping distance short and are well organised out of possession, so to try and get them to move and press Stones or Rodri they will play a 1-2 with the defender and then if the midfielder has come to press them then the space should be vacated for an AM to move into and the CB to break lines with 1 pass. 

The rotation of Silva, Alvarez and Foden was also a key part of city’s success going forward. A lot of the time the players do rotate but will stick to certain zones e.g foden wide right and Silva Central and Alvarez 10 role behind Haaland. However against Brighton all the midfield players were completely interchangeable, Stones was everywhere, Foden was RM but dropping into CM to receive the ball, Alvarez was CF or LM at times, Silva was wherever the space was. The complete freedom of the Man City midfield was a nightmare for GroB and Baleba to deal with. 

Brighton set up 4-2-3-1 as normal / 4-4-2 when defending, so when defending the 2 CM were being moved about and played against 4/5 midfielders who were all interchanging regularly meaning they didn’t know who to pick up or when to press Rodri or Akanji.