We really are now through the looking glass with Pep Guardiola. Eyebrows had been raised by the way Manchester City approached the second half of their commanding derby win last week, sitting off, allowing United the ball and picking them off on the break. But their performance in drawing at Arsenal on Sunday was on a different level entirely: just 34% possession, the lowest any Guardiola side has ever registered in a game. By the end they had four central defenders, two holding midfielders and a full-back on the pitch.
But even that doesn’t get to the heart of how strange this was. In the previous five seasons there have only been 10 occasions when City did not have more possession than their opponents in a Premier League game. Only once before in the Premier League has City’s possession under Guardiola dipped below 40% – when they registered 37% in beating Arsenal 3-1 in February 2023, a decisive game in that season’s title race as it pulled City level on points with Arsenal at the top, although they had played a game more. That fixture, though, was an extreme version of the United game: City sitting deep, looking to strike on the break and, as it turned out, scoring twice in the final 20 minutes to seal their win.
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Sunday was something different. If they ended that game in 2023 with more defenders than they had started, it was only because of the ill-starred experiment with using Bernardo Silva at left-back. It was not a full-on retreat into the bunker. Sunday’s game was, at least until the decisive moment of injury-time when City, bafflingly in the circumstances, were undone by a ball played in behind their defensive line. Perhaps it’s unreasonable to expect a team so used to playing on the front foot to be able immediately to man the barricades.
There was an odd sense of the game mirroring the sides’ clash at the Etihad last season. On that occasion it was Arsenal, with a half-time lead, who retreated and looked to stifle the second-half before succumbing in injury-time. The major difference then was that Arsenal had been reduced to 10 men by the dismissal of Leandro Trossard just before the break. And even then there was a sense that their retreat had been so extreme that they had courted the equaliser they eventually conceded. Why, then, would Guardiola do it with a full 11? Was the memory of last season’s 5-1 mauling at the Emirates weighing so heavily on him?
Guardiola is not a dogmatist. He has always evolved. But even by his standards Sunday was a radical departure. He insisted after that the approach had been forced on him by “one of the best teams in Europe” but, given no Guardiola side has ever played remotely like that before, does that mean Arsenal are by far the best side he has ever faced? Or is it an admission that he does not trust this squad to play the possession football with which he is so associated?
When he has changed before – a full-back tucking in as an additional midfielder, fielding four central defenders, having John Stones step out – it has always been with the intention of establishing control, of creating the platform on which the carousel could turn. This, though, was about survival. And what made it all the odder was that in the first-half, it was the Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta who seemed a little over-cautious, favouring the functional over the players who could have tried to expose a City side who, impressive as they have looked against United and a Napoli reduced early to 10, have lost twice already in the league this season and were potentially vulnerable.
Caution is back at the highest level of football. The progressive, pass-heavy style that has been hegemonic over the past 15–20 years is yielding to a more physical game centred on crosses, set plays and giving nothing away. Even Guardiola is moving on from the paradigm he did more than anybody else to establish. Yet on top of the table, five points clear, are Liverpool, who began the season by reducing the amount of cover they had in midfield. As Arsenal and City fret, Liverpool blithely get on with scoring more than the opposition.
It’s true that looking shaky in two-goal leads and relying on late winners is not sustainable, and true also that Arsenal, having played Liverpool (away) and City, have probably had the tougher fixture list. But still, as all the likely top three make stylistic tweaks, Liverpool’s is an extremely healthy position as their new signings settle.
The uncertain journey into a post-Pepist world goes on.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.