Manchester City line up at CSKA Moscow

Manchester City travel to Moscow tomorrow with the need to take home some points if they want to keep their Champions League progression on track, after Bayern Munich humbled them at home in their previous game in the competition. Manuel Pellegrini has a big decision to make before kick-off; does he stick to his attacking principles and encourage creative freedom from his players, or opt for a more pragmatic approach given the circumstances? 
Here’s how the Citizens could line up…

4-2-2-2

Pellegrini’s formation of choice is one based around a South American 4-2-2-2. While the personnel he has at his disposal can change how that pans out exactly, the basic principles are based on four separate lines of the pitch, intelligent movement and improvisation from his players. Jesus Navas, for example, performs more or less the same job as Joaquin did for Malaga in this set-up as a right sided attacking midfielder, while David Silva isn’t dissimilar in his movement to Santi Cazorla when the current Arsenal man was at Villarreal.

The two strikers are likely to be Sergio Aguero and Alvaro Negredo, and the Argentine in particular may be asked to drop deep and help the midfield out more than he has previously in this set-up, after failing to do so when City played a 4-2-2-2 against Bayern Munich.

 4-2-3-1

 

A negative consequence of the 4-2-2-2 and its flexibility can be that opponents have more opportunities to counter-attack into space. As a result, Pellegrini may be reluctant to field Javi Garcia, who doesn’t do well with his back turned and against pacier opponents. Joleon Lescott, though not particularly quick himself, is better at making recovery tackles than the Spaniard, so could be a more stable alternative.

On the rare occasions that Pellegrini does alter his formation, it tends to be to a 4-2-3-1, a more conservative approach that most managers would consider apt for an away trip. The personnel in the attacking positions is unlikely to vary hugely even if Pellegrini opts for this set-up, but Aguero’s starting position would be significantly deeper, placing him more or less in line with Navas and Silva, with the Argentine asked to push forward from the middle where possible, rather than dropping deep on occasion from a central striker’s role as is the case in a 4-2-2-2.

The biggest luxury of this more rigid formation is that it shields City’s back four better, reducing the opportunities for the opponents to counter-attack. A result of this could be that Pellegrini opts for the pairing of Javi Garcia and Matija Nastasic, giving him one left footed and one right footed centre-back. That balance should make City’s job easier when it comes to bringing the ball out from the back, as it facilitates more natural passing angles. This is made possible as Garcia’s lack of pace is less likely to be exposed within this structure, so the advantage of having a more natural base to build from may outweigh the cons of fielding the Spaniard.