Guardiola’s side faced what promised to be a tough challenge against a Shakhtar side that have already beaten one of the best teams in Europe in the form of Napoli in this years Champions League.
City force Shakhtar to the centre…
Given how passive and risk-averse many of City’s opponent’s often are, we don’t always get to see extended periods of City pressing against a team that is actually trying to play constructively, so it was refreshing to see this on show in the game with Shakhtar.
City’s primary strategy while pressing was to force Shakhtar into a congested centre, from where they could attempt to win turnovers. Shakhtar built up from their 4-2-3-1 formation with the centre-backs splitting fairly wide and the full-backs fairly high. In front of the double pivot were Shakhtar’s three attacking midfielders, who played much more narrow than you might normally see – something which Pep Guardiola noted in his press conference before the game.
City’s press started with the curved runs of the wingers. These curved runs towards the centre-backs allowed City’s wingers to prevent the pass to the Shakhtar full-back using their cover shadow while also allowing them to pressure the ball and force Shakhtar defenders to turn inside rather than being able to escape pressure by playing into wide areas.
In the centre, City had Aguero, Silva and De Bruyne who were able to prevent Shakhtar’s double pivot from receiving the ball comfortably from the centre-backs. So Shakhtar, if they wanted to progress the ball into the 2nd line, effectively were being made by City to play into a zone in which City had a 3v2 advantage at that moment.
The three aforementioned players, Silva, De Bruyne and Aguero, didn’t just mark Shakhtar’s double pivot, they also showed some aggressive pressing movements. When the ball went backwards to one of the centre-backs they used this opportunity to press the ball with well timed forward movements to keep one of Shaktar’s defensive midfielders in their cover shadow while pressing.
With such aggressive pressing from the midfield players, there was a clear overload for Shakhtar around Fernandinho, with their three narrow attacking midfielders. However, overloads are worthless if the area in which it takes place for the possession side cannot be accessed with the ball. Due to the intensity of City’s pressing and the smart option-oriented coverage, Shakhtar were unable to exploit this potential advantage, as they could rarely get into a position where they could find a good pass behind City’s midfield line. The closest they got was with long passes to the striker Ferreyra which were intended to bypass City’s midfield before knocking the ball down into the attacking midfielders.
…Shakhtar force City to the wings
In contrast to City’s pressing/defensive game, Shakhtar were firstly much deeper than Manchester City, who rarely fell back into their own half if they could help it. Shakhtar didn’t press aggressively against City’s first line of buildup. The strikers concentrated on preventing passes into Fernandinho primarily.
Shakhtar’s wide midfielders started narrow. If the ball went to the wing, they would push out, but again, using their cover shadow, put priority on preventing diagonal passes into the centre. Otherwise, the wide midfielders for Shakhtar were looking to prevent line-breaking passes through the halfspaces. They stayed close to their central midfielder to restrict the space for City to play through, similar to Liverpool’s idea in their games against City last season.
This is an example of a wider theme of Manchester City games becoming quite halfspace focused due to the movement of Pep’s #10s in the halfspaces, when they come up against compact defences. Because of their movement away from the ball rather than towards it, and the mixed positions they take up, i.e. between two or more opposition players, they can have the effect of drawing opposition players into these areas as they look to close the spaces around them – hence, the game becomes halfspace focused.
As a result, the ball often went to the wing, where the receiving City player would often be pressed by the Shakhtar full-back if the distance between them was small enough, and the wide midfielder would continue to cover diagonal passes inside. The two central midfielders for Shakhtar, Fred and Stepanenko, would drop quite deep when the ball went wide, which meant that there was sometimes some space in front of Shakhtar’s midfield where the ball could be played into after the ball had gone to the wing, which was one of few routes to playing inside the opposition shape for Manchester City, and isn’t a particularly advantageous one, but it was made slightly better for them by the fact that sometimes the player receiving in these spaces was Kevin De Bruyne, who can be dangerous with deep crosses from these areas.
Another small issue in Shakhtar’s defensive system was the behavior of central midfielder Fred when Delph played came inside as an inverted full-back. Shakhtar did not defend man-oriented in midfield, however when Delph moved into his zone of access there were a couple of occasions where Fred would move towards him trying to anticipate a pass to Delph, but this left too much space behind him and if the right-midfielder Marlos wasn’t close enough, City had an open passing lane to Silva or Sane in the left halfspace.
Contrasting strategies again in possession
Not only did both teams have slightly different, but successful focuses against the ball, they also had contrasting but interesting approaches in possession. Shakhtar struggled to get sustained possession in City’s half for the most part, but from the times that they did manage it, there were some encouraging aspects to be identified.
As mentioned, the wide midfielders of Shakhtar played as #10s while in possession, which plays quite well against the spaces which naturally occur around Fernandinho in City’s 4-1-4-1 defensive shape. So some of Shakhtar’s more promising moments in their possession phase came from ball-near overloads to connect inside from the wing, as well as combination play between the closely positioned attacking midfielders.
City, on the other hand, were fairly wing-oriented. They didn’t have much choice, given that the defensive game from Shakhtar was effective in preventing them from accessing the centre. This was especially the case in the 2nd half, where City were attempting more and more diagonal switches to the opposite wing to try and force 1v1s. For the most part, Shakhtar’s shifting was fairly quick and intense, meaning that switches proved to be a good way of gaining ground for City, but Shakhtar were usually able to prevent them from isolating the full-backs too much and being able to create goalscoring chances from this. City further increased the wing-orientation of their play when they brought on Sterling in place of Gabriel Jesus. Although Sterling did move inside at times, he clearly spent more time near the touchlines than Jesus did. Having Sterling in this role meant a more passive role for Walker in order to give more stability, especially with Walker’s recovery speed against counter-attacks, at a time where City were 1-0 up.
Shakhtar tried to press higher towards the end of the game but City were just too stable and press resistant. Fernandinho connected well with the centre-backs around Shakhtar’s front two, De Bruyne and Silva could drop deep to help circulation, but they also had a threat behind Shakhtar’s defence with Sterling and Sane. The full-backs could be used to relieve pressure as they had dropped deeper so the Shakhtar full-backs had to move further forward to press them, and the wide midfielders were still focused on protecting the centre and were not so quick in moving out towards them. Ederson was also used to good effect at times against Shakhtar’s efforts in high pressing.
Conclusion
Shakhtar were outclassed in the last 20-30 minutes by City, however in the first half especially, they were very impressive in all phases of the game and made it a very entertaining match between two proactive and tactically coherent teams.