Man City 1-3 Bayern: Muller hassles Yaya as Guardiola attains the next level of tiki-taka

All the pre-match talk was about how Pep Guardiola could possibly improve this treble winning star-studded Bayern Munich team. His reply, far from being subtle, was an absolutely stunning display of the German version of tiki-taka. In fact rarely in the past five years has such a high ranking English team been tactically demolished on home soil. Apart from all the accolades that Pep’s Bayern are due, equally critical one needs to be piled upon Pellegrini’s shape in this game.

The South American coach has started to favor a permanent front 2 at the Eastlands club, and yet again it was Aguero and Dzeko who lined up against the Champions of Europe. Another one of Pellegrini’s favorites Nasri started on the left, though his major role this season has been to drift into a central position to complete the triangle alongside Toure and Fernandinho.

Surprise inclusions in the team were the fullbacks Richards and Clichy, though the Frenchman’s addition seemed justified over the defensively culpable Kolorov. City’s shape though on paper looked to be a 4-2-3-1 with Aguero at No.10, though put it down to the Argentine’s injury niggles or Pellegrini’s stubbornness, rarely was the South American seen anywhere other than next to Boateng in Bayern’s defence.

Pep on the other hand had to shift in Philip Lahm into the Defencive midfield position due to Martinez’s injuries. Another tweak saw Muller as the furthest forward instead of Mandzukic, resulting in a 4-2-3-1 with Rafinha as Right back and Schweinsteiger being advanced into a No.10 role.

Robben engages Nasri and Dante dominates Dzeko: City lose midfiled battle

The unbalanced midfield battle was evident right from the early period of the game, as Kun Aguero started the match trying to run off Boateng. But the towering German defender showed a good presence in the back and checked Aguero’s runs time and again. In fact it was City’s other striker Edin Dzeko whose tactics were more interesting, as Pellegrini had to keep switching his roles due to Dante’s superb show at the back.

All of City’s balls from the back were directed towards Dzeko, and his flick ons are often suited for Aguero and Navas’s styles. But it was Dante here who was winning every aerial battle against Dzeko. In fact the Brazilian had to often step out of position from CB into a wide right or central position to check the striker’s run, and Lahm’s deep role became crucial here as the German captain deftly fell back into defence in such circumstances.

Dzeko’s secondary role on the night was to be positioned on the wings and to compete against Alaba for long balls from the back. Dzeko usually is more used to a role involving making runs in the channels, and his wide positions here were rarely advantageous for City despite him winning a few balls.

With Aguero sitting next to Boateng and Dzeko and Navas being shuttled by Dante and Alaba, Lahm was often left free in the centre. The German though only settling into this new role often had the simple task of playing in Kroos next to him. And with only Toure and Fernandinho in City’s midfield, Lahm and Kroos had extraordinary amount of space in the centre.

Stats of 92% and 97% pass completion rate respectively are quite indicative of Bayern’s dominance in the centre. But equally responsible for Bayern’s dominance was the presence of Robben and Ribery on the wings. As Gary Neville pointed out, rarely has Robben been seen in a role that involves winning the ball in such deep positions. That left Samir Nasri always in the backfoot against the Dutchman, and more importantly rarely allowed him to do a job in the centre.

Ribery on the opposite side was at his frightening best and so was the highly underrated combination of Ribery and Alaba. Alaba is easily one of the most attacking fullbacks around and now his chemistry with Ribery has grown a level. What burdened City much more was that Jesus Navas on a right was surprisingly shabby in his backtracking with the Austrian Left back.

So, it was just a simple task of Ribery taking on Richards and feeding in Alaba on the overlap. Richards’ physique was quite a threat for Ribery initially, but the space and time that was available for Lahm and Rafinha to pick out crosses meant that Bayern started to find Ribery either hugging the lines or else in a deeper and central position away from Richards.

Bayern’s pressing unsettles Toure; Muller is a perfect match for Pep

In the midst of all of Bayern’s wing-play and City’s deep lying midfield, Bastian Schweinsteiger was being afforded all the space to run into. Though Fernandinho was often covering Schweinie’s runs, Bastian started to drift away from the centre into a more right attacking role.

This involved letting Robben cut-in from the right and thus forcing Fernandinho to divert his attention there. The ex-Shakhtar man was purchased based on his previous big games in this tournament, and here despite having put in 4 out of 5 successful tackles and some crucial interceptions in the centre, he was let down by his teammate Yaya Toure’s uncharacteristic off-day.

Toure is a player who keeps moving off the ball in order to receive the ball in plenty of space, and he often lingers on the ball longer and prefers to drag away the opponent and surge forward with the ball. But against Pep’s team Toure was continually hassled by the likes of Muller, Schweinie and Kroos, and rarely did the Ivorian get time to take more than a couple of touches.

Toure lost the ball a couple of times just outside the box after being tackled down by the spirited Muller. And despite the Ivorain midfielder’s continual effort to push ahead, Bayern always had an extra man in midfield to stop the attack and push the ball to the wingers.

Bayern’s dominance in midfield was quite evident at the break, but Pellegrini barely changed anything at the start of the second half. The only change seemed to be that Toure started to press down Kroos and Lahm in much deeper positions. So this often saw Toure rush ahead towards the German duo in their half, and again due to Aguero’s static presence upfront, the Bavarians found a ball towards the wings. And now even more critically for City, it was only Fernandinho left in front of the City back 4. And even the Brazilian had an off-day next to Toure, as he cheaply gave away the ball to Robben for the 3rd goal.

After Fabregas’s performance as the False 9 against Celtic on Tuesday, Muller was expected to put in a similar shift against City. Only, the German international took it up a notch this time around. Muller was often seen close down Yaya Toure and his continual pressing saw Toure loose the ball plenty if times.

In fact Muller had the most extraordinary of stats for a centre forward as he ended the game with 8 headed duels in midfield and a 100% tackling rate. While in attack Muller pulled out into his regular wide right role, and he along with Schweinsteiger and Robben outnumbered the unfit Clichy at left back.

Pellegrini’s late changes show ‘What could have been’ a great game

Second half substitutions would have been City’s only chance of getting back into the game, and even these were extremely late additions by Pellegrini. 70th minutes changes saw Milner and Silva come on for City in-place of Navas and Aguero. The home team now looked much more stable with a proper No.10 added to the midfield and Milner imposing a better defensive presence against Alaba.

With Negredo now as a proper finisher upfront in place of Dzeko, Silva’s delicate ball from the hole allowed the Spanish striker to turn Boateng and finish perfectly into the corner. Another indication of the importance of Silva’s role was seen when the Spaniard’s flick saw Yaya Toure in on goal only to be tackled by Boateng who got sent off.

Pep’s changes were much more orthodox as Bastian was replaced by Kirchhoff. The ex-Mainz CDM was the culprit in Boateng’s sending off, as his inability to deal with the long ball led to Dante being pulled out off defence and space opening up for Toure’s run. The other change Shaqiri made a similar impact to what Robben had been doing all day.

In what had promised to be a cagey affair between the best team on paper in England and best in Europe, turned out to be a ruthless display of closely controlled passing at a tremendous speed followed by some intense pressing and closing down by Pep’s Bayern. Pellegrini has seen his 4-4-2 and 4-4-1-1 being quite successful in England, where Yaya Toure alone has been able to marshal the midfield duet. But the Chilean coach will need to rethink his strategy against the best of Europe.

Top of the match: Franc RiberyFlop of the match: Gael Clichy