Pep Guardiola’s wry and serial observation is that only victory makes the head coach appear a sage of the tactical battle. If defeat is endured then, fair or not, it is open season on the man who lives and dies by results.
Cut to Wednesday’s 3-0 Champions League last-16 hammering of Manchester City by Real Madrid and Álvaro Arbeloa emanated a seer-like cool in the post-first leg briefings, while Guardiola was forced into explaining why he sent out a 4-2-2-2 that crumpled so easily before Federico Valverde, who scored a memorable first-half, 22-minute hat-trick.
This was a question of personnel rather than shape. You could see the Catalan’s thinking in overloading with three wingers in Savinho, Antoine Semenyo, who partnered Erling Haaland in attack, and Jérémy Doku: go at Real with pace, particularly along Trent Alexander-Arnold’s right-back flank, reach the byline and pop crosses over for the Norwegian to score.
However, though two or three times Doku and Nico O’Reilly, from left-back, got into those areas, their balls in found empty space and not their No 9, and at this level profligacy is lethal: by the 42nd-minute Valverde had his third, and City were cowed.
As Doku said: “In those types of games you need to score the chances that we have. Otherwise, when they have a chance they score … They were just waiting for us to make mistakes. They are a good transition team.”
In this we come to the thorny issue of the City No 9. Ensuring maximum Haaland-potency has become a quasi-conundrum Guardiola has to solve. The Norwegian’s numbers remain phenomenal: 29 goals from 40 City appearances this season, with seven in nine in the Champions League. But the strikes are drying up. Haaland has a paltry four in his past 14 outings, with two of these penalties.
The overall figures are an interesting read. Opta’s statistics shows that from Haaland’s 125 Premier League appearances, City’s win rate is 65%, and that in 18 games without him it is 78%. In the Champions League it is a 58% win rate (from 38 appearances) with him in the team, and 50% without him (four matches).
The numbers without Haaland come from a markedly smaller sample size, but the above may be why Guardiola has recently fielded Semenyo or Omar Marmoush up top alongside Haaland, and why an extra schemer was sacrificed to squeeze Savinho in ahead of Rayan Cherki, Phil Foden or Tijjani Reijnders in Madrid.
“Squeeze” is used here because when the teamsheet was published, Savinho’s name caused a brow to be raised. The 21-year-old is not a Guardiola first choice. His inconsistency can disappoint the head coach, he may be sold in the close season and Saturday’s start in the 3-1 FA Cup win at Newcastle (Savinho scored his side’s first) was a first since the goalless draw at Sunderland on New Year’s Day, when he sustained an injury from which he only recently returned.
At the interval at the Bernabéu came a Guardiola mea culpa as he hooked Savinho for Reijnders. The 55-year-old had a plan, but it failed.
“Wingers were injured for two months, and they played incredible – Savinho at Newcastle and Jérémy was an incredible threat here,” Guardiola said. “We covered runners with Nico and Antoine. That was the idea. Part of this was for wingers to try to drop them [markers] and people in the middle in pockets to arrive close to the box, [support] the striker and second striker, with experienced, fast players in behind.”
Valverde’s first finish came courtesy of a shrewd Arbeloa plan to hit City’s high line with a direct pass: Thibaut Courtois’s upfield punt was taken instantly by the Madrid captain, O’Reilly missed him, and Valverde rounded the onrushing Gianluigi Donnarumma to score.
The Uruguay midfielder said: “We’d put some emphasis on training the long ball from goal kicks. City like to press high – they like to go one-v-one, and that means we might have space in behind them to exploit.”
Courtois echoed this. “I have a big kick and though many times people say I don’t play well with my feet … I know I’m not [Marc-André] ter Stegen but I have a good hit mostly and we’ve worked on it and it went well.”
Doku pointed to a naivety which allowed Valverde in and which, again, exposed Guardiola’s misjudged setting up of the XI, and the inexperience of O’Reilly. “When you lose the ball – which is normal – break the action,” Doku said. “We know they are waiting for that. Don’t let them run.”
A failure to “break the action” for each of Valverde other goals is traced back to more callow defending – from Marc Guéhi and Abdukodir Khusanov, who are also Champions League novices like O’Reilly.
So the end result is City’s chances of progression are in intensive care before Tuesday’s return. Hope does remain, though.
As Valverde said: “We know we need to compete like a band of brothers, cover each other’s backs, and that is how you achieve great things. Ties in Manchester are always tough – we’ll go there treating it as if it were 0-0.”
