Date: Tuesday 10 April 2018
Kick-off: 19:45 GMT
Venue: Emptyhad Stadium, Manchester14 September 2016, Opening Champions League group game against Borussia Mönchengladbach"Huge, sheer stands, the Blue Wall, utter bedlam. It's a raucous bear pit of noise". - Nobody, ever.
With a 3-0 first leg win to dissect as well as a second leg to preview, this may have a feeling of a round table meeting a typical RAWK preview.
We discussed in the
preview of the first leg the possibility that the likes of their less competitive game against Everton beforehand, the under current that they could win by simply turning up and Liverpool having the opportunity to build up a lead to take into the second leg could well be beneficial to us. Also the need for us to shut down their penetrative passing from the likes of De Bruyne, Silva & Sane in particular. A lot of what was discussed certainly looked like it rang true in the game with City looking under prepared for the task facing them and Liverpool doing a great job of minimising the impact of City's main creative 3.
We also discussed the decision to put Laporte up against Salah in the pre match thread which resulted
in twitter going into meme overdrive after the game for the moment Salah said "I'm sorry" for ruining Laporte.
You can see clearly here how effectively we shut down City in the key zones where most of their goals are scored. Where normally they are able to complete on average almost 4 passes into the 6-yard box per game, they completed 0. Where they are normally able to complete ~30 passes per game right in front of their opponents box, we allowed them just 5. Neither De Bruyne or Silva were able to complete a pass in front of our box. Instead having to move the ball to the flanks (mostly left). Not to mention how the decision to bench Sterling effectively meant they played the game without a threat on the right flank.
Guardiola said before the game that: "I know the way we play is perfect for Liverpool because they’re a team that attack that space unlike any other team in the world." The question then remains - Why do it then? Why play into our hands? I personally think Pep is tactically probably the best coach in the world. His biggest flaw is how much he over thinks things. He did the same thing for the return leg of when he lost 4-0 at home to Real. His instinctively said right after the game to his assistant "we need to play 3 at the back, don't let me change my mind later because I will". Then changes his mind the day before the match to 4-2-4 and they got battered - he calls it "The biggest fuck-up of my life as a coach."
So I think that 4-3 defeat got in his head coupled with the fact that most of the goals we are conceding recently have been happening in our defensive right half space. Therefore he wanted to do two things. Firstly sacrifice the threat on their right to give them more numbers in midfield in the first attacking phases to help them better escape our press. Secondly, with just one winger on the pitch, to focus on that area of recent weakness - the TAA/Lovren zone.
The flaw in this line of thought it two fold. Firstly, that we wouldn't adjust to his change and simply find a way to reshape our press to counter the extra body and De Bruyne being deeper. Secondly, that we would have predicted his plan to isolate and attack TAA and specifically worked on that in training.
But also it's another example of him over thinking things. He doesn't need another body in midfield, he just needs to bypass our press until we tire. He did this before against Klopp and it's when he had his better results again him. He knows that trying to build up play from the back through midfield is just playing into Klopp's biggest strength and therefore instead of doing what worked before - nullify that strength - he is trying to make his side better at playing through it, still.
And the reason for this is what I mentioned in the pre-match write-up. Control. For Pep everything he does in football is about control. Klopp's tactics are about disrupting that control and flipping it on it's head. It's just a bad match up for Pep. Pep then has two choices, to stop trying to control the ball and the opponent and try to play a more transition based game by bypassing our midfield earlier, or get better at controlling things. And even though the former works for him, he still over thinks things and convinces himself that this time he knows how to take control of the game, that he sees why it didn't work before but why it will this time. Then ends up playing right into Klopp's traps once again.
So what should we expect from the second leg?
This is something else we discussed in the first leg preview. Pep's recurring problem of getting behind in the first leg of a tie away, then struggling to overcome that deficit in the home leg. This exact scenario has played out 5 times so far for him in the Champions League. Hopefully we will be talking of a sixth in just 3 sleeps time.
Given our injury problems (at the time of writing only Simon Mignolet & James Milner have declared themselves fit to play), it could be a rough second leg. Henderson's suspension for a stupid and needless foul on Sterling is annoying too given our lack of numbers in midfield. But the hard part is done in giving us a lead to hang onto. All we need to do is shut down those central areas of the pitch, prevent Sane (mostly) and Sterling from getting in behind and attacking spaces between full back and center back, and then take our chances when we hit them on the counter. Man City almost need a perfect game. They need to score 4 themselves while also hoping the best counter attacking team in europe don't nick one on the counter. Not a great spot to be in.
I could go into more detail on this but, instead, let me share some gifs from the first leg that made me smile that will fire you up for the second leg more than a thousand words (literally!) ever could!
Salaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! Check out Firmino's arms when he passes "TAKE THAT, HORSE, I'M AN OX!" - 24/7Sane running directly into Trent's pocket"Salah... ah Mane, Mane!"Da fuq is this? Robertson Carlos?Misery likes ... Kompany... Sorry, I'll stop!Okay, one more time for my buddy Zlen!Mane ending Otamendi's careerHis kids are watching this, ffs!"I'm sorry"Titaniumbollocks Alexander-ArnoldSalah soaking up YNWA with a wry smile shared with Bobby Many thanks again to Capon for his photoshopping skills. Also thanks again to JCB for all the help with the analytics side of things