Jon Mackenzie

It’s Monday and so you know the drill. We’ve got time for one final noticing before Christmas...

And I thought I would do something a bit different because I wanted to talk about how Man City kept Amad Diallo quiet in the Manchester derby... until they didn't... [thread] 

You may have noticed that City struggled to deal with Man United’s build up on their right-hand side early in the game. Let’s tease out why...

Like a lot of teams in modern football, City like to press their opponents high up the pitch, often looking to go man-to-man to stop them from progressing the ball. 

This means they sometimes have to push their full backs high up the field to stop their opponents from having a free player. 

Over the course of the last few seasons, opponents have looked to target this weakness in City’s pressing structure by baiting their press high and then attacking the space the space left behind by the jumping full back.

Pochettino’s Chelsea did this especially well in the 4-4 draw last season.

No doubt because of this, Ruben Amorim looked to target the full-back-area weakness by playing Amad Diallo high in the right channel to exploit this space. (NB. the position of the other wide forward, Bruno Fernandes) 

This meant that when City’s full back on the left, Matheus Nunes, joined the press, their centre backs were left isolated 1v1 against Diallo and Rasmus Hojlund in a lot of space... 

This is obviously quite a risky way of playing against these sorts of profile of forwards, especially with a defence that has proven to be quite error-prone in recent weeks.

So very early on, Guardiola tweaked things a bit to try to lessen the amount of space around the two Man United forwards.

City were already using a fairly unusual 433 pressing shape against United's possession shape. All that Guardiola changed was the marking responsibilities of the players in this shape to match them up better to their opponents. 

Now, rather than Nunes needing to jump up, Foden went across instead to cover the wing back.

Which meant that City went from this channel coverage early on in the game... 

To this... with a spare man to add a level of protection around the two United forwards 

This change took place around the 9th minute of the game and at first it felt a little ad hoc. Perhaps it had been trained for in the run up to the game but there were a few issues with it in the first half.

One of them was that Foden initially started out quite central before jumping to the press, which meant that sometimes he arrived at Mazraoui a little late. 

Which because Jeremie Doku was expected to cover the middle when Foden went, led to situations like this... 

In the first half, United didn't exploit these situations as well as they perhaps should but they still presented an easy way of giving up central progression...

So in the second half, Guardiola changed things up again, having Foden start out much wider, and having Doku be more careful about when he went or didn't... 

This system worked much more functionally than the initial tweak. In fact, the only time it broke down was when Doku lost possession of the ball with Phil Foden in an aggressive attacking position, leading to the Fernandes chance. 

So ironically enough, City's plan for keeping Amad quiet worked pretty well... Until it didn't...

But what is interesting about those moments is that in order to get an advantage against this structure, Amad had to move into more central areas. 

So what do we learn?

On the one hand, City's out of possession tweaks to make sure Amad was kept quiet in the channel were nicely finessed through the game and very nearly did enough...

On the other hand, good players always find a way...

If you like this thread but want things to move more, why not try video!

YT: https://youtube.com/shorts/lluTf-cR47M?si=EkVDyyZhyFO1LPQL

tt: https://www.tiktok.com/@theathleticfc/video/7449062129371499808?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7384610459468793376

Insta (soon): https://www.instagram.com/theathleticfc/reels/?hl=en

I'm taking a few weeks off noticing over the Christmas period. I hope you've enjoyed these thread/videos over the calendar year. We'll be back in January with more noticing but until then peace out!

Did you notice that it’s not Monday? But that isn’t stopping us from noticing things all the same!

Today I just wanted to do a quick thread on how Barcelona dismantled Atalanta’s man-to-man press for their first goal in the Champions League fixture yesterday [thread] 

Under Gasperini, Atalanta have become known for their fairly unique man-to-man press.

To be honest, Gasperini’s press is probably one of the earliest iterations of a hybrid press, but that perhaps gets overlooked because it arrived at hybridity from a man-oriented starting point where most other hybrid presses emerged from out of more zonal systems.

The reason why this is important is because what we see with Atalanta’s press is a jumping into man-to-man moments from more conservative starting points.

The general principle here is that you want to make sure you don’t overcommit in the man-to-man phases. If you do, you’ll not only end up with defenders exposed 1v1 in space, but you’ll also lose access to the opposition which means your press will eventually collapse.

Let me explain what I mean. Here’s the starting position of Atalanta’s press for Barca’s build up phase: 

As you can see, this is broadly man-to-man but it is designed so that your players arrive in a man-to-man configuration depending on which side of the pitch the opponent build in.

So if the ball is progressed on Atalanta’s left, they jump to the man-to-man phase. 

But there is often a countermovement on the other side to make sure that the whole team isn’t being pulled up the field. 

As a result of this, you’re making sure you constantly have players dropping to avoid being dragged slowly up the pitch. Which means you don’t lose coverage of the pitch between man-to-man jumps and also means that your players are always ready to press ‘forwards’.

This means that Gasperini’s teams are always constantly in flux - jumping and retreating - to give themselves the best chance of maintaining structure despite their largely man-to-man approach.

For a more in-depth study, check out Albin’s study of Atalanta: https://x.com/albinsheqiri/status/1868598466382807405

But there are weaknesses here. As with all man-to-man approaches, despite the clear benefits of preventing opponents any time or space on the ball, the fact that you’re orientating yourself to an opposition player comes at a cost.

Inevitably, the man-marker will always be reactive to the player they’re tracking which means that teams playing against a team who use man-to-man principles can drag their markers around and find ways of generating separation between them as well. 

On top of this, Atalanta’s fluxing - when they step up on one side and drop off on the other - means that they can be susceptible to switches in play if their press is caught in the ‘in-between’ phase between stepping up and dropping off.

Barcelona’s first goal is a good example of how these problems can be exploited.

The principles are: create space through movement, and find ways of generating separation from your markers to exploit this space.

The sequence begins with a switch of play along the Barca back line which starts with Kounde and sees the ball arrive at the feet of the other full back Balde. 

This prompts the two way movement that we’ve talked about with the left side of the Atalanta press dropping and the right side being triggered.

Both Raphinha and Lewandowski drop in to support Balde and this pulls the Atalanta back line very high, creating space in behind. 

It’s worth noting that one of the weaknesses that shows up in this in-between phase is the massive space that opens out between Hien, the Atalanta CB, and Kolasinac, the Atalanta LCB. 

Because Zappacosta, the LWB, had to jump in the previous phase, Kolasinac has had to cover Yamal until Zappacosta returns to his deeper position. By that point, though, he’s lost connection with Hein at CCB, and the space is there to be exploited

In principle, open spaces aren’t necessarily an issue in a man-oriented system as long as players are being tracked but, as we said, the initiative is with the markee rather than the marker.

In the case of Yamal, because of the double role of Zappacosta and Kolasinac, he’s able to find himself in space on the far side of the pitch. 

Over on the near side, with Lewandowski receiving the ball in the midfield, Raphinha can now attack the space that they’ve created and also use the momentum shift against Djimsiti to create some sort of separation from him. 

At this point, it’s all over for Atalanta. 

So this is the perfect example of how to cause problems for Atalanta's press:

* work the ball from one side to another to create a weakness
* pull their structure apart to create space
* generate separation from your markers by attacking this space

If you prefer your content in video form, why not check out these links?

YT: https://youtube.com/shorts/cQ4k2VQqkcI?si=vUKJywWNrnWiYjiW

tt: https://www.tiktok.com/@theathleticfc/video/7465723545432100128?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7384610459468793376

Insta (soon): https://www.instagram.com/theathleticfc/reels/?hl=en

It's Monday. And on Mondays, we notice.

Today, we get to notice the impact that Enzo Maresca has been having at Chelsea which resulted in a 4-2 win from a 2-0 deficit vs Spurs yesterday... [thread] 

But rather than focusing on the obvious topic here - 'How did Maresca's tactical changes at half time influence the game?' - I'm aware that I've already done some noticing on a similar situation which you can read here:
https://x.com/Jon_Mackenzie/status/1853481651470307708

And for the specifics of how the half time switches changed things up in possession in this game, why not check out @ConnorHolden00's video on the topic which you can find here:
https://youtu.be/YxicmagM7AU?si=4sSsh6kSSH5q625X

Instead, I'm going to focus on a topic which has almost gone under the radar a bit but which I think actually coloured the whole tactical context of the game: Spurs high press.

But first: some context.

This season, Chelsea have generally set up with a box midfield in possession that looks something like this: 

However, they tend to defend in a different shape so they have to arrive at the box midfield in a different way. They have lots of different options for this and the half time shift actually involved a different way of forming the box.

Against Spurs, they started out using Moises Caicedo as a right back out of possession… But he would move inside whenever they had the ball: 

In most build-up moments, then, Caicedo was already inside which played into the hands of the Spurs pressing structure to some extent: because Spurs press out of a 433/4141 shape, they were able to match Chelsea player-to-player with their high press. 

Now, obviously, even with this man-to-man setup, Chelsea still have the extra man in build up because they have Rob Sanchez, the goalkeeper, available as a +1... 

The problem was that Spurs were pressing Chelsea so aggressively that Sanchez' technical flaws were being shown up a bit.

In fact, Spurs' best chance (per xG) came from a sequence where Sanchez was pressed into a mistake: 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Spurs' first two goals came through Chelsea mistakes in build-up, and although Marc Cucurella was unlucky to lose his footing both times, because Spurs were pressing so aggressively, they were well-positioned to benefit from these slip ups. 

In the end, Tottenham created most of their expected goals in open play through the high press. 

Which raises the question why Maresca was happy to allow his build-up unit to be put under pressure for so long in the game?

But of course, the answer is always: because tactical approaches are always about trade offs.

If Spurs were pressing man-to-man at the front, it meant that they were also defending man-to-man at the back. 

Because Spurs were so aggressive with their high press, it meant that if Chelsea could break the press or play over it, they were often in very nice attacking scenarios with 1v1 matchups over the pitch. 

This is a nice example of a tactical trade off that probably didn't play out in Maresca's favour as they ended up creating less open play xG than Spurs (albeit with Spurs only putting up 0.7 xG from their build up, but that's another story). 

After Chelsea drew level at 2-2, then, Maresca decided to change things up. By this point, Marc Cucurella was being used as an inverted full back but jumping up into the 10 slot. Rather than pushing him up in deeper build-up, Maresca decided to keep him in the back line. 

This now meant that Chelsea technically had a +2 advantage in build up against the Spurs 5-men pressing unit, which reduced the pressure that Chelsea were under as they worked the ball from the back.

Most importantly, though, it neutralised Spurs' most potent attacking threat in open play: their press.

And maybe there is a deeper tactical point to take away here: there's been a lot of discussion about Ange Postecoglou's seeming lack of tactical flexibility. This is even more pronounced in a game where they had a 2-0 lead largely gifted to them and they still went on to lose.

I'm not here to run through the old debates or lecture you, but it's telling that after drawing level, Maresca made an effectively more conservative choice in opting to solid up his team's build-up but still went on to win.

Perhaps the lesson here, then, is that you can make tactical changes that on paper reduce your attacking threat (dropping a player from higher up the pitch in build-up) without it hugely curtailing your overall tactical philosophy.

At 2-0 up, Postecoglou could arguably have used his press less aggressively. Would it have affected his team's attacking potential? Undoubtedly. As we've seen, the press was their most dangerous attacking tool in open play.

But at 2-0 up, the priority should probably have been stopping the opponent from scoring rather than staying as potent from an attacking point of view.

These are the tactical trade offs that managers have to face week in week out. Postecoglou is free to manage the trade offs as he sees fit (and who am I to suggest otherwise). But on the basis of the two managers on the pitch, the one with flexible solutions was the one who won.

If you prefer videos, you're in with some luck!

YT: https://youtube.com/shorts/1Tab-2mmdwY?si=n0v4c2bpO7NnA4Mn

tt: https://www.tiktok.com/@theathleticfc/video/7446465756801355040?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7384610459468793376

Insta (coming soon): https://www.instagram.com/theathleticfc/reels/?hl=en

These videos are colloborative projects. Thanks to Jamie Stewart for filming and producing, and @CPHamill, @EuroExpert_ , @ReubenPinder and @donmafilms for their help in the ideation and production process.