Much was made about how the derby turned out on Saturday afternoon. The underlying rivalry that exists between Pep and Mourinho was at the epicentre of the Manchester derby and there was no doubt about the intensity of the game which engulfed the game right from the opening whistle.
The 172nd derby kicked off to cheers, whistles and apprehension as Guardiola started with Oscar Bravo in goal, the £17 Million acquisition from Barcelona which resulted in English international goalkeeper, Joe Hart exiting Manchester City.
Both the Manchester clubs came into the game having won their three league matches respectively and there was tension in the air as onus lay on the Red Devils to rise up to the occasion. Having won only three out of sixteen previous fixtures against Guardiola’s teams, Mourinho knew he was up against it as his team kicked off the derby.
Guardiola’s tactical acumen outwits Mourinho
Over the years, Pep has grown into one of the most formidable coaches and the Manchester derby can now be added to his personal list of big match derbies. Having coached the Barcelona side which faced Mourinho's Madrid, he knew he would be up against tactics which would look to stifle his team’s creativity.
For a player, who has been a part of the Cruyff era, he has taken on board the Dutch legacy to build his own brand of football. At Barcelona, where he started out, he had the right personnel to implement this strategy. The team which comprised largely of La Masia products as well as the reserve team members whom Guardiola had been coaching at the time, took to his tactics like a duck takes to water.
Having ended his playing career in the city of Culiacán in north-west Mexico, with Dorados, which is more famous for the billionaire drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, he picked up the early nuances of coaching from his good friend Lillo, against whom he played for the first time in 1998.
Guardiola hasn’t shied away from dropping stars and has stuck to a team philosophy rather than individual whims and fancies. The story goes that Juan Manuel Lillo, the then coach at Dorados was good friends with Guardiola and was aware of Pep preparing for his coaching badges as his career dwindled to a close. It was Lillo, who convinced Pep to join him at the Mexican club.
The former coach, while speaking to Duncan Tucker of The Guardian, told of a young Guardiola and how he had already begun to prepare for the next phase of his career by discussing tactics from the viewpoint of a coach. Lillo believes that his current teams are an amalgamation of the Cruyff tactics and the tactics he learnt at Dorados.
Lillo and assistant coach Raul Caneda also laid importance on the fact that they helped Guardiola understand the idea of collective positioning and defending from the front and also helped develop the idea that the defence and attack weren’t separate identities.
At the time it was an understandable chink in Pep’s armour, for he had played only for the bigger teams which possessed individuals who could change the game single-handedly. But with a smaller team and tight budget, Guardiola learned the art of organization and discipline, which are often the hallmarks of small teams.
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Similarly, on Saturday his decision to go with the young forward Iheanacho, instead of a false nine showed the thinking of a man who is willing to play with specialists rather than stop-gap measures in the form of a false nine. Sterling has earlier played such a role so it was mooted as a possible option for Guardiola to try such a tactic.
Instead by choosing a like for like replacement, Guardiola ensured that the fluidity behind the front man wasn’t disturbed as De Bruyne and Silva made penetrating runs taking advantage of the sluggishness of the United midfield which comprised of Fellaini and Pogba.
Further, Pep’s second half move to bring on Sane and Fernando in place of Sterling and Iheanacho ensured that City dominated the ball in the midfield with their attacking outlets such as De Bruyne and Sane, given space to run at the Manchester United defence. The quick transition from defence to attack enabled City to be a threat throughout the game.
Pep Guardiola’s energetic team should be careful of burnout
At the end of the game, Pep looked a bit frazzled but surely exhausted. The Spaniard tends to submerge himself into the game in such a manner that his exertions leave him notably tired. For him, a game is like a boxer in a ring, with every interception or tackle won by his opponent’s team a punch pushing his team into a corner.
There have been instances where he resembles a grandmaster as well, shuffling his players like pieces to get results as he desires.
The problem lies within Pep, his incessant nature of trying to control every aspect of the game, the minor detailing he puts into positioning, his players etc. The map of the game which Pep has in his head, has to be implemented along with the result.
The Premier League for all its drawbacks offers a much more competitive platform than any of the other European leagues. In the Spanish league and Bundesliga, top teams have created a gulf/chasm so wide that some teams turn up knowing that the positive thing on the day is to maintain a respectable scoreline.
In that respect, the Premier League doesn’t have easy games and sometimes it is not about the quality, instead, it is the economics involved which makes it a more competitive league. The huge amount of money involved in the game ensures that most managers look to avoid defeat. Avoiding defeat means players in question take lesser risks and thus a much more narrow game.
Pep is aware that City as a club will have to encounter games of such nature on most weekends. The derby although was a wonderful English match where both sets of players displayed tendencies of the sublime to the farcical.
If Ibrahimovic’s goal was the pick of the sublime, Bravo’s flailing attempt to catch the ball which presented the opportunity, was the counter to such clinical finishing.
Mourinho to a certain extent played into Guardiola’s hands when he opted for no pace but set his team to attack on the counter. The under par performances of both Lindgard and Mkhitaryan didn’t help the cause of Manchester United and Mourinho should have planned better.
Defending as a whole did, in the end, save City’s skin as United mounted attack after attack instead the City team put on a display which the club hierarchy would have had in mind when their pursual of Guardiola finally came to fruition.
As has been the case with Guardiola’s teams, City did end up with more possession and with a mid-week fixture against PSG in the Champion’s League coming up on Tuesday, Pep’s team can take more positives than negatives from this performance.
A possession based game over the course of the league might be more self-hampering for Pep’s team as the relentless pace of English football does tend to catch up with the players and Pep will do well to achieve a balance between possession and a counter attacking team.
