Last season, Manchester City’s meetings with Brighton & Hove Albion mainly revolved around pressing schemes and how each side tried to get past them.
The storyline continued when they faced each other at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, with Pep Guardiola’s 2022-23 treble winners successfully limiting Brighton’s build-up for about an hour, as City’s smothering press made it harder and harder for them to find their usual passing combinations.
There was, however, another phase of the game where the home side had a clever idea.
When they had the ball, John Stones pushed into midfield next to Rodri as Bernardo Silva positioned himself in the left half-space. City’s shape looked like a 3-2-2-3, with Julian Alvarez on the right side of the midfield box…
…but, in reality, the shape was more lopsided, with Alvarez in a central position, looking to find space behind Brighton’s double pivot of Pascal Gross and Carlos Baleba when City were building up…
… and searching for space around the midfield area when they were attacking down the wings.
Against De Zerbi’s 4-4-2 defensive block, City wanted to overload the wide areas — for the purpose of dragging that double pivot away and creating space for Alvarez towards the edge of the Brighton box.
In this example, Josko Gvardiol plays a ball in to Jeremy Doku while Bernardo is positioned in the left half-space and Alvarez is floating around the midfield.
As Doku receives the ball, Bernardo’s forward movement draws the attention of Baleba. However, the key City player here is Alvarez, who doesn’t rush forward and instead maintains his deep positioning…
…to offer himself as a cutback option.
The problem in this attack is that Bernardo doesn’t continue his run into the box, meaning Baleba and Gross can easily cover Alvarez. As a result, Doku tries to find Erling Haaland, but his pass goes wide.
In our next example, Alvarez is in a central position, looking to find space in between the lines as City maintain their attacking shape despite switching the players around — Gvardiol, Stones and Rodri are occupying each other’s places, with the Spanish midfielder dropping into the defensive line to cover for the defenders.
After Gvardiol plays the ball to Kyle Walker, he continues moving forward, as City’s right-back passes on to Phil Foden. The Croatian centre-back is being tracked by Gross…
… and by forcing Brighton’s central midfielder wide, there’s more space for Alvarez in midfield, where the visitors’ centre-backs can’t move up to cover him because the attack is going in the other direction.
Foden finds Gvardiol’s run into the channel…
…which forces Brighton’s defensive line to drop deeper to minimise the space between themselves and goalkeeper Jason Steele.
All of this benefits Alvarez, who holds his run and smartly positions himself for the cutback option, but Gvardiol’s pass doesn’t find him.
Here’s an identical attack, but with the City players in their normal roles.
Again, Alvarez is distancing himself from Brighton’s back four, looking to find space in the central areas as Walker plays the ball wide to Foden. That pass is the trigger for Stones to start his run into the space between Igor Julio and Solly March, dragging Gross with him…
…to create space for Alvarez centrally. It’s a similar scenario to the previous example, Brighton’s back four have to drop to prevent Stones from finding Haaland after Foden plays the ball into the England defender…
…and, because Gross is tracking Stones, Alvarez is in acres of space by the edge of the box. Unfortunately for City, Stones doesn’t play the pass into the Argentina forward, opting to try to find Haaland, only for Lewis Dunk to clear his low cross.
Better execution from the City players in these examples could have finished the game off earlier, and spared them a tense ending after Ansu Fati made it 2-1 on 73 minutes. Yet, it was this move that had put City into a 1-0 lead after seven minutes.
Here, Bernardo’s movement forces Gross to move wide to support James Milner against the Portuguese midfielder and Doku, vacating the central space for Alvarez in the process.
As Doku starts dribbling out wide, Alvarez doesn’t rush into the box and keeps his position…
…as he knows that once the Belgium winger reaches the byline, Brighton’s defensive line will be closer to Steele and the space will be in front of the six-yard area. Once Doku gets past Gross, he plays the cutback to Alvarez…
…and the South American’s scuffed shot finds the back of the net.
“Every team is so concerned about defending and controlling the spaces close to their goal that there are now more threats from further away,” said Juanma Lillo, City’s assistant manager, last year. “The last player to arrive in the box is the first one to be able to shoot. I tell that to my strikers all the time: the closer you get to the goal, the further you are from scoring.”
Creating cutback chances is easier said than done — you need the right movement to open up the space, and the smart positioning of your attacker to occupy it.
That’s what City did against Brighton.
GO DEEPER
Manchester City have a left-sided problem and opponents are targeting it
(Top photo: Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images)
