Manchester City’s Attack May Hold the Keys to Defensive Stability

With Manchester City facing an absolute crisis in the center of their defense, the need for their attacking players to be flawless just became greater.

Manchester City’s situation in the center of their defense has been absolute chaos just a few weeks into the 2019-20 season.

Not only has the team lost their best defender, Ayermic Laporte, for several months due to a major knee injury. They’re now facing another several week stretch without the second of their natural three center backs on their roster: John Stones.

Pep Guardiola revealed on Tuesday that Stones will miss four to five weeks out due to a muscle injury he picked up in training the day before City were set to face Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine for their UEFA Champions League Group Stage opener.

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With Stones out, Manchester City are now left with just ONE healthy player who’s plays the position naturally. That player is the error-prone Nicholas Otamendi, someone who didn’t exactly cover himself in glory in City’s 3-2 shock defeat at Norwich City over the weekend.

If the team plans on maintaining a back four, which is Guardiola’s preferred formation, they will have to play either Fernandinho, who Guardiola has been training to be a center-back for this season (but who has never played the position full-time before), or Kyle Walker (who’s natural position is right back) as one of the two center backs in tandem with Otamendi. That’s a nervy prospect to say the least!

Guardiola could also experiment with using Rodri there, though his performances in the holding role make him more preferable in midfield than in defense. He could also promote Eric Garcia from the youth academy, but it remains unclear if he’s ready for a substantial role in the first team even though he performed quite well when called upon in the Carabao Cup last season.

With the center of Manchester City’s defense in such shambles, the key to stabilizing their team in that area will have to come on the other end of the pitch – from their attack.

City have had some excellent moments in their early season games so far when they’ve put teams on the back foot. However, they’ve also been wasteful with several of their quality chances, and some of the mistakes they’ve made in attack have helped contribute to a few of the breakdowns we’ve seen on the other end of the pitch.

Being elite in front of goal, and making sure they are as sharp in possession as possible, are ways in which they can limit what their opponents can do. In fact,  they’re already played like a team that uses their incredible attack as a form of defense.

Sam Lee and Michael Cox of The Athletic did a good write-up on this topic in August. By keeping teams pinned back on their back-line, and possessing the ball for significant stretches of games, City has been great at preventing any chances that teams can create against them. Even in the few times where they concede a goal scoring chance after they’ve lost possession, they’re not conceding many clear-cut chances that are likely to result in a goal because of the way they position themselves off the ball, and in the way they press their opponents to win back the ball as soon as City lose possession.

Manchester City’s performances in the second half of last season are informative of what they can do in attack to limit their opposition. In particular, their dominant performance at Bournemouth this past spring works as a guide of what they’re capable of when they fail to set a foot wrong.

City possessed the ball for 82% of the game in their 1-0 win against Bournemouth back in March. Though they struggled to create and finish off their few clear-cut chances that day, City prevented Bournemouth from taking a single shot over the course of the entire game. It was arguably their most dominant performance of the past three seasons, despite a close scoreline.

Though it’s very unlikely that they’ll be able to limit any teams to no shots moving forward, what they did in that game works as a blueprint for how they can use their attack to stabilize their defense against most opponents. By making sharp passes, occupying the proper spaces on the pitch to limit space for their opposition to work with, being disciplined, communicating well as a unit, and limiting their mistakes, City are able to absolutely stifle a solid attacking side from being able to create anything.

Of course, as they begin to face stiffer competition in the coming weeks, possessing the game to death is unlikely to be a realistic strategy. In that case, City need to be as sharp in front of goal as they’ve been when they’ve been at their high scoring best over the past two seasons.

City’s attack is superior to anyone’s, even Liverpool’s. They’re going to need everyone firing on all cylinders in the final third if they’re going to beat teams of their caliber.

It’s a steep task for Guardiola’s team to hold down the fort in defense given what’s transpired already this season. However, this team is still more than capable of righting the ship until they can bring in reinforcements in January.