Lee Scott - Mastering the Premier League: The Tactical Concepts Behind Pep Guardiolas Manchester City

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019

Pitch Publishing

A2 Yeoman Gate

Yeoman Way

Durrington

BN13 3QZ

www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

Lee Scott, 2019

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.

A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library

Print ISBN 978-1-78531-563-3
eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-606-7

--

Ebook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com

For Kelly, Alex, Thomas and
Harry. Your love and support
means everything.

In retrospect, the genesis of this book was actually some time ago. I was writing on a semi-regular basis for a couple of well-known websites and my writing, predominantly based on the tactical side of the game, was well received. I was contacted by someone that I knew only through social media, a man named Chris Darwen, who had the idea of starting a new website that would focus on the tactical side of the game. Chris wanted to know if this was something that I would be interested in. Well, of course I was: the opportunity to write in the way that I wanted to about the subject that fascinated me was too good to turn down. This site would come with financial backing and as such Chris wanted me to write a manifesto for the site that would sell the idea to the investors.

This was the first time that I had ever had to sit down and consider why I actually write the way that I do. I was lucky enough to have been invited to join the fantastic tactical website Spielverlagerung but my writing there never took off. I realised that I did not fit with the philosophy of why they write. The incredibly talented group at SV write in order to educate themselves. The readers are important, to an extent, but the overriding why for their site was to further their own self-improvement. I should be clear that I am in no way being critical of this idea and the talent that has written on that site is astounding. I am still an avid reader whenever a new post is released.

What then was my why? I realised that I wanted to show people that the idea of tactical concepts and trends was not overly complicated. I wanted to simplify elements of the language that surrounds this side of the game and make it accessible to all of those that were interested but did not know where or how to start understanding. That was the core of the manifesto that I created and that process has now led to the magnificent Total Football Analysis website and to my being able to call Chris a friend.

I first fell in love with the football of Pep Guardiola, as so many others did, when the Spaniard was coaching FC Barcelona. Guardiola changed the world of football with that team and introduced to many the concept of controlling and manipulating space as his side progressed towards the opposition goal via a series of short passes that mesmerised the opposition and those watching alike.

Not only did Guardiola change the way that football was viewed from the inside; he also did the same for those of us watching from afar. The prism through which we viewed football was changed forever.

When Guardiola left Barcelona and eventually joined Bayern Munich we saw a new side of the Spanish coach. He assimilated into German football and took some aspects of the game there and introduced them into his game model.

If his time at Barcelona gave us Lionel Messi and the false nine, then Bayern Munich gave us Philipp Lahm and the inverted full-back. Guardiola seemed to be capable of finding new solutions to ensure that key spaces were always occupied and exploited and he did so in new and creative ways.

Then it was time for Guardiola to take his fascinating game model to these shores as coach of the already impressive Manchester City. After a difficult first season in charge, in which the coach learnt a lot about certain aspects of the British game, we then saw Manchester City blow apart the majority of their opposition over the course of the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons. The former saw the team set records for points gained and the latter saw them perform at such a high level that they retained their Premier League title despite Liverpool performing incredibly well and running them so close that the league was decided on the last day of the season.

Now feels like the right time to take all that I have learnt about Guardiola over the years and try to explain just what makes City so effective on the pitch.

There are those, of course, who will point at the levels of spending and suggest that without significant levels of financial backing Guardiola could not be successful. While the capacity of City to spend is largely unmatched in the football world it does not take into account the ability of Guardiola to improve players. Under his coaching we see good players become great and great players become world class. This is what Guardiola brings you, a level of detailed thinking on and off the pitch that can improve the performances of each player by the ten per cent needed to make his club successful.

We have often heard stories throughout his career from former players detailing the way that Guardiola would prepare them for games. The predictions that he would make to his players before games of how the opposition would set up and how they would react to City, almost always came true.

The tactical concepts used most often by City are relatively simple when broken down. What makes them so effective, however, is the way that they execute these concepts with unerring efficiency. Over the course of this book, I hope to be able to offer you a clear insight into why and how City move and pass the way that they do. At the end of the book if you are now able to enjoy the style of play used by Guardiola even just a little more, then I will judge my efforts to have been a success.

Firstly, before we get into the tactical concepts promised, I want to introduce you to a small piece of language that you may already be familiar with through your own reading or writing. That is the often misunderstood half-space. This term is one that I use throughout my writing and I have done so for some time now. There are some, especially on social media, who consider it to be useless jargon. In fact, it is an integral part of understanding the tactical concepts of Guardiola and Manchester City and it is not at all complicated.

In we see an image of a pitch that I have used to create all of the images for this book. The pitch is split into five vertical channels that are labelled from one to five from left to right. Channels two and four are the half-spaces. They refer to areas of the field that Pep Guardiola likes to have occupied when his team are in the attacking phase. If they do so properly then the opposition are forced to move from their defensive position to cover these areas and that opens space elsewhere. See, not complicated at all.