Manchester City Impress vs. Kiev but Same Old Vulnerabilities Remain

The idea that football clubs have a character outwith the coach or the players, or even the owners, seems ridiculous, and yet again and again it seems to be true. If it were fans and journalists demanding a certain style of play, perhaps that would make sense, but it goes beyond that. Manchester City remain ineffably Manchester City, a club to whom remorselessness is anathema.

City were, broadly speaking, excellent in Kyiv on Wednesday. In the 61-year history of the UEFA Champions League, teams have come back to win a tie after losing the first leg at home only seven times. The 3-1 victory over Dynamo makes them near-certainties to reach the quarter-final for the first time in their history. They were much the better team and deserved their win. There was much that was positive about them tactically and in terms of attitude.

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Now that's how you prepare for a cup final! COME ON CITY! #kyivvcity #mcfc pic.twitter.com/GLylYNN5cE

— Manchester City FC (@MCFC) February 24, 2016"

And yet there was also a spell of perhaps 20-25 minutes when they seemed to be clinging on, when the prospect of a full-on City-style meltdown seemed a real possibility.

Chelsea’s response to becoming the richest club in the league, when Roman Abramovich bought them in 2003, was for two seasons to be relentless. That is what explains the apparent contradiction between them being perceived as not playing attacking football in Jose Mourinho’s first spell in charge and them scoring at almost two goals per game over that period—they scored goals, but they did so in a way that was boring because they so rarely looked like losing matches.

City’s response has been to remain the same old City, just richer. Their squad is packed with wonderful players who, on their day, are capable of displays of supreme football, and yet the two league titles they’ve won have both arrived in part because others have collapsed. They’re never reliable enough to be dull, never consistent enough to romp away with a league title.

For the half-hour in Kyiv between scoring the opening goal and half-time, they were superb. It perhaps wasn’t quite as impressive as the performance away to Sevilla earlier in the season, but it didn’t need to be. Dynamo suffered the affliction that has so often beset Ukrainian and Russian clubs in the past: Their winter break leaves them rusty; without competitive football since early December, they weren’t as sharp as they ought to be.

But even with that caveat, City were excellent. Not only that, they were excellent in an unexpected way. City manager Manuel Pellegrini has often been criticised for his passivity, for picking the same side whatever the opposition.

It appeared here that the template was as it has been for much of the season: a 4-2-3-1, with Fernando and Fernandinho at its base, Yaya Toure just in front of them and Raheem Sterling and David Silva on the flanks.

GENYA SAVILOV/Getty Images

What quickly emerged, though, was that Toure was playing as the deepest of the three central players, with Fernandinho on the right and David Silva operating centrally. This, perhaps, is the way of solving—at least until the end of the season—the Toure conundrum.

He remains a hugely talented footballer, capable of conjuring goals from next to nothing, but it’s become increasingly apparent that his legs have gone. He cannot get up and down as once he did, loping from one box to the other. The solution had seemed to be to advance him, to remove some of the defensive responsibility, but that has repeatedly left City with holes, something both Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur have exploited in recent weeks.

Dropping him deeper means his forward forays will be far more limited, but that means they can be more focused. His legs are spared. He doesn’t have to go chasing. He can just sit in front of the back four, fill space, use his prodigious range of passing to create the play and then, when appropriate, he can advance, as he did in the final minutes on Wednesday as City took control of the match again.

With Toure holding. Fernando and Fernandinho are freed to press more aggressively than they have been able to when they’ve been playing with half an eye over their shoulders. Whether that is a long-term strategy or whether the deployment of Fernandinho on the right was aimed at putting pressure on the Domagoj Vida-Derlis Gonzalez axis on the Dynamo left—Vitorino Antunes would be the more usual choice at left-back but was suspended—remains to be seen.

According to stats from WhoScored.com, Fernando won the ball back five times with tackles or interceptions, Fernandinho four times and Raheem Sterling, shuttling up and down the left, four times as well.

Fernandinho is also more than capable of getting forward—something he did far more frequently in his Shakhtar days—and it was his lay-off from an advanced position that created the space for Toure to score the third.

What playing Fernandinho on the left also does is free up David Silva to play as a No. 10, far more involved in creating the play and setting the tempo than he can ever be when operating off the flank.

City looked more incisive as an attacking force, but they also looked better defensively. That may, in part, be down to the return of Vincent Kompany, whose absence with his various calf problems has been sorely felt, but often this season the apparent shambles of the back four has been the result of problems higher up the pitch. With a more solid midfield, the back four looked far more secure.

Or at least it did until about five minutes into the second half, when City suddenly, inexplicably, started to wobble. Kompany played a needless and dangerous square pass. Jitters set in. Vitaliy Buyalskyi's goal was unfortunate in that it took a deflection off Nicolas Otamendi that defeated Joe Hart, but he should never have had so much space.

Complacency? Weariness? Fragility in the face of a team that comes at them? It was hard to know, but it was very City.

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#MCFC

2012—Group Stage ❌
2013—Group Stage ❌
2014—R16 (Barcelona) ❌
2015—R16 (Barcelona) ❌
2016—Quarter-finals ❓ pic.twitter.com/gg6Scy58BX

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) February 24, 2016"

In the end, City saw out the storm and might have won even more comfortably: A two-goal margin was the least they deserved. But there was a franticness about them at times, a lack of control that offers little encouragement they could hold a one-goal lead against a top side—indeed, they’re yet to keep a clean sheet in seven Champions League games this season.

There were positives aplenty, but there was also a very characteristic sense of vulnerability.