As August 30th approaches, the draw for the Champions League group stage gets closer and teams are starting to plan how they can rule Europe. For Premier League champions Manchester City this is a chance of salvation after they struggled in a pretty tough group and failed to reach the knockout stages. This season, with the confidence of being Premier League champions, the club and the fans expect to go much further in Europe’s elite competition. However, if they are to progress then I believe there are a few changes that have to be made.
During the group stage last season City showed naivety that can come with being debutants. It is true that not progressing through the group stages after amassing 10 points is very rare but with Villarreal (who were eventually relegated from La Liga last season) failing to collect a point then the other 3 teams all effectively had 6 simple points. City’s only other win came against a second string Bayern Munich side (who rested star names as they were already through). When you add in that the Carlos Tevez argument was the main talking point, this shows how underwhelming City’s performance in the Champions League was last season.
City certainly have the players and the squad power to challenge the mighty Barcelona and Real Madrid, who are once again installed as favourites, and with the experience gained from the troubles last season, City should be a force to be reckoned with. However, if Manchester City are to succeed I feel they must play with 3 centre midfielders in all Champions League games. Last season Roberto Mancini attempted to play in the same way as he did in the Premier League with only two central midfielders from de Jong, Barry and Yaya Toure. It is fine to play this way in the Premier League as the game is much quicker and more end to end so therefore you must exploit the breakaway and have as many players that can influence in the final third as possible.
However, in the Champions League, the focus is largely on possession of the ball and making your defence hard to infiltrate. With 3 centre midfielders, the midfield will be more packed out and therefore City will be able to regain and retain possession much quicker.
This is how Chelsea succeeded last season as they had numbers in the middle and when they got the ball managed to keep it for long periods of time and how can players like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Franck Ribery harm you if they don’t have the ball? However, it doesn’t have to be played as negatively as Chelsea played it as Barcelona have built most of their success of the last few years on 3 central midfielders.
This would mean only picking 3 purely forward thinking players to play from the start and could mean disappointment for one of Aguero, Tevez, Silva or Nasri but imagine any of them players coming off the bench against a tired defence!
Manchester City certainly have the capabilities in their squad to play this way with Yaya Toure, Barry, de Jong, Milner and Rodwell all capable of playing in the middle. This formation would put extra importance on Yaya Toure to be that constant link between midfield and attack. If 3 of these players can play to the best of their ability and keep the ball away from all the dangerous players in Europe then Manchester City could have a serious chance of progressing much further and with some luck and a disciplined group of players, who knows, maybe lifting the Champions League trophy next May.
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Mancini i wish u culd give dis a try, but any aproach u take 2 dis, is ok, as far as we become champions of europe. City all the way