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Tactics Bored: How Pep Guardiola is once again changing the world

Manchester City are now managed by a maverick. Not only is he a maverick, but a deep thinker. Someone who does the cryptic crossword, not just out of choice, but because they actually understand how they work. Someone who wears cardigans. Someone who would never wear a properly sized tie. Someone who would not even think twice about teaming a skinny suit with some rather snazzy trainers. Someone who is able to understand just why Marcelo Bielsa, who hasn’t won anything of merit for two decades, is a genius, actually.

Pep Guardiola is this man, and he is indisputably a genius. The work he has done has revolutionised football. Under his watch, midfielders have passed to one another more accurately and regularly than ever. Defensive midfielders have dropped deep into midfield. Goalkeepers have learned to use their feet to kick the ball. It is, therefore, not to early to subject Manchester City to some rigorous, hardcore tactical analysis.

Looking at the first teamsheet named for City’s game in the Premier League. Some things are obvious. Aleksandar Kolarov featured in central defence, with Guardiola assiduously realising that Kolarov is just as good in the middle as he is at left-back. Bacary Sagna, at times, became an auxilliary defensive midfielder at times, adding to Gael Clichy and Fernandinho, to become a pivote doble e un in midfield. A pivote doble e un, statistically speaking, is 50% better than a simple pivote doble, allowing both Kolarov and John Stones in defence to both form two pivotes alongside each other, but both moving independently so that at no point were they a pivote doble. Obviously.

The next match, against Stoke City, was again a sea change. Though Stoke had Bojan Krkic in their line up, it was clear which of the two teams had the strongest Barcelona influence. Hart was prevented from revolutionising goalkeeping, with Willy Caballero again in charge of redefining the art of standing near the goal and coming out when necessary. As well as that change, it was obvious that more was taking place. To the untrained, uncouth and naive eye, it seemed as if City were lining up with a rudimentary 4-1-4-1 formation. But that is as basic as someone like Louis van Gaal or Carlton Palmer might come up with, and Guardiola is plainly much more intelligent than either of them,

There was even some embarrassingly simplistic talk that this was a kind of 4-1-4-1-cum-W-M formation. That, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is barely half the answer. Yes, there was a 4-1-4-1 and a W-M formation, at times, but it misses the subtle changes in between. Looking at the shift in formations below, taken as a snapshot below:

It is obviously a 4-1-4-1, reverting to the mean of a 4-4-2, then expressing its own square root with 4-3-3, then it transposes to the aforementioned W-M, before then becoming a 0.5-three-3-X-ADam-two. Most of us knew that already, I’m sure, but it’s necessary to lay the groundwork to speculate on what the next formation could be, taking clues from the match against Steaua Bucharest.

Fortunately, Yahoo sources at the Etihad and City’s Carrington training ground have attested to some mind-bending tactical experiments going on, and it seems that Guardiola is no longer limiting himself to human players. He believes there simply are no longer enough neurons in the human brain to adequately cope with his ideas. As he is loath to adulterate his players’ bodies with any kind of illegal additives, he is suggesting a provocative line-u for the weekend. The formation he plans includes mathematical concepts, vectors, and pure solar energy. How Pep.