The Round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League, with Barcelona visiting the Etihad, dominating possession with short, sharp passes, keeping City running all night with very few opportunities to create anything for themselves.
Man City Selection
Pellegrini being without Yaya Toure due to suspension meant that a four-man midfield was chosen, using a 4-4-2 formation. Dzeko was preferred to new signing Wilfred Bony or an additional midfielder such as Fernandinho against a team renowned for their intricate play in the centre of the pitch.
01 Hart
05 Zabaleta
04 Kompany
26 Demichelis
22 Clichy Dismissed after an earlier booking
08 Nasri (Fernandinho – 62′ )
06 Fernando Booked
07 Milner
21 Silva (Sagna – 78′ )
10 Dzeko (Bony – 68′ )
16 Agüero
Barcelona selection
A typical 4-4-3 formation and line up, with Barca legend Xavi on the bench with Rakitic starting.
01 ter Stegen
22 Dani Alves Booked (Adriano – 75′ Booked )
03 Piqué
14 Mascherano
18 Alba
04 Rakitic Booked (Mathieu – 71′ )
05 Busquets
08 Iniesta
10 Messi
09 Suárez
11 Neymar (Pedro – 80′ )
Match summary
Barcelona controlled much of the match, going in two goals up at the break, having 62.5% of the game’s possession, a statistic which is often said to be taken as too much of an indication of the way a game has gone, but on this occasion Barcelona’s possession was not only high but short, sharp passes kept the ball from City. Moments of over three minutes at a time that City did not touch the ball says a lot about the way in which Barcelona approached the game.
Wrong choice in Midfield for City?
As highlighted, Manchester City started with a 4-4-2 formation, choosing a midfield four of Milner and Fernando playing centrally, with Nasri and David Silva playing wide. Throughout the game, Samir Nasri did not make a single tackle and made only one recovery. David Silva attempted five tackles and succeeded three times, as well as making two ball recoveries. In the time that Fernandinho was on the pitch, the player made three tackles, three of which winning the ball, as well as making four ball recoveries; more than Samir Nasri’s 62 minutes on the field of play. This perhaps suggests that Fernandinho would have been a more effective choice for the starting line up than Nasri, purely for defensive reasons, with Barcelona be allowed to complete 76 successful passes in the final third during Nasri’s time on the pitch, three of which created chances and one of these assisted a goal. All of these three key passes originated from the edges of the final third, a midfield position.
Dzeko too was fairly ineffective in a striker position, having only one shot on target from six shots and creating only one chance. With this in mind, retrospectively it could be that City should have played with Fernandino as a defensive midfield player, in place of Dzeko and allowed Nasri, Silva and Aguero to look for goals at the other end of the field.
Unplayable Barcelona?
Although it is easy to identify weaknesses in team tactics, there is always the argument that Barcelona are… well, Barcelona. Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez are players that could play in almost any team in the world, individually. Put them together and you have three main points of focus for defenders to mark, that’s without taking into consideration the runs from midfield and advances of Jordi Alba on the left. Lionel Messi, single-handedly had two-thirds of the amount of successful take-on’s as the whole Man City team throughout the 90 minutes.
The two first half goals from Suarez meant that City had a lot of work to do in the second half, managing to pull one back but Gael Clichy was sent off for a send bookable offence, leaving the last part of the game even more difficult for City, with a mammoth task ahead at the Camp Nou. One positive for City came in the closing moments of the game, as Zabaleta fouled Messi and gave a way a penalty, Messi had his penalty saved and then did the unthinkable- missing an open goal on the rebound… Maybe he is human after all, not that the rest of his display during the game suggested so.
Conclusion
Perhaps then it can be concluded that a possible change in personnel in the starting line up for Manchester City could have resulted in a harder City defensive unit to get through, trusting Sergio Aguero to add to his 97 Man City career goals that he started the game with, on few opportunities to enable the team to hold majestic Barcelona at bay. Afterall, Aguero had two shots in the game, scoring one and the other being more of a half chance from over twenty yards from goal.
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