Stopping the Manchester City juggernaut

Perhaps taking a feather out of Mourinho’s cap would be a likely suggestion from many. Inter quite literally “parked the bus” and frustrated Barcelona at Camp Nou. Despite conceding a goal Inter went into the Champions league final thanks to an aggregate score in their favour. Well, that is history. Many teams have adopted a strategy that would stifle the opposition’s usual flair and rythm by just fielding a strong number of defensive players with even creative playmakers reverting to defensive positions.

The reason for this defensive formation is due to the lack of technical and passing ability the players possess. With practice comes perfections and the likes of Silva, Toure, Modric, Iniesta, Fabregas have all mastered the art of slick and acute passing which is the current theme whilist the rest playing to their tunes.But Surely football is about pass and move.The English game though has suffered a lot by laying more stress on pace and strength and little or less emphasis on their technical faculty.When Rooney makes a diagonal cross, the commentary goes “That is absolutely world class”. In any day and age a player with a splendid first touch and a deft second touch is idolised forever.And perhaps why Rooney is the most overrated English player at the moment.

At the moment though Man City are playing no less than “Fantasy Fotball” and it is unlikely that teams could match their style of play, atleast in the premier league. The balance they strike with midfield and defense is perhaps their greatest strength. Man united, Chelsea ,Arsenal,Liverpool are all going through an overhaul of defensive cover. So how then can a team stop Man City from releasing an avalanche of goals on their turf?

Setting up teams to counter-attack with pace and trickery on the flanks will be the answer that most come up with and is certainly a valid argument. This certainly works out only in the case where there are genuine ball winning midfielders and players with quick passing movement use the full width of the pitch. But playing without the ball is as difficult is playing with no one to support upfront and perhaps this why teams struggle to forge ahead.

Thus most managers adopt to the school of thought of “Deny the space”. Genreally eliminating any player running into the space by packing the midfield and congestion would rather irritate even the brightest of midfielders. So we have moved on from the era of “Intercepting a pass” to “Intercepting the space”.Playing a 4-2-3-1 is perhaps the best a team can do, by playing a combination of technically gifted players in the midfield and a stoic defensive cover, with an exceptionally hard-working striker. It might be enough to beat the beat out of city. Ofcourse the parameter for victory will based on the fact that Silva, Toure, Aguero and Dzeko are all closely marked with players of equivalent caliber(who is hard to produce, but easy to buy). On a lighter note though, the only chance of beating Man City is in FIFA 2012/PEs 2012, because at the moment thought there is serious drought of world class midfielders in the top clubs in the English premier league (more in terms of English players)and the game is drastically changing from pace to precision.