Man City vs Man United

This tactical analysis features the tactics of Man City and Man United. You will understand how Man City set their tactics against Man United in this ...

The struggles of United was an extremely complex issue, and they will not be solved in one game, or one season – let’s see what they could achieve with Rangnick under the current condition this season. The City left-back was on time to clear the danger before United pose real threats to Ederson. United always wanted to hit the ball into that channel but the execution was mostly disappointing. Of course, Tottenham and United were different teams, the setup would not look 100% the same, but there were similar structures as Rangnick targeted the same part of the rest defence to attack. Then, the second player, Pogba, attacked the same gap as Son did and even though he was not as quick as the Korean winger, what determined his availability to receive was the timing of movement. In the second half, despite the initial way of counter-attacking did not work, United might still be able to exploit the rest defence structure of City. For a couple of times, when Cancelo was high, the gap between Laporte and him was too big in transitions. Rodri could not counter-press Fred instantly because the first action of United brought him to Elanga, so Fred remained free. Lately, when City have the ball, the rest defence structure consisted of mainly a 3-1 shape, the right-back was more playing infield as the third centre-back and the left-back was a bit higher to attack in the wide spaces. When Kane dropped, City centre-backs had difficulties in the forechecking because the angle of receive and timing of movement could avoid this action, so Pep Guardiola’s men could not win the ball back in the first action. Note that Son’s run is always through the gap between Walker and Dias, that could be a big threat when Dias oriented himself towards the striker, so that gap was stretched. In game 26 which City lost to Tottenham, the guests had a great counter-attacking scheme to create chances in transitions – City were unable to find a solution throughout the game. Both centre-backs, Rúben Dias and Nathan Aké could not play, so John Stones and Aymeric Laporte partnered in the defence, with João Cancelo and Kyle Walker as the full-backs.