24 | Joško Gvardiol - 2023/24

[vanchi]

I think he will eventually be played in the Stones role, maybe when Stones doesn't play. Inverted left back coming into midfield, or centre back stepping up into midfield.

Pep has already alluded as such, praising his ability to play CB, LB and DM.

Can't expect him to be throw in immediately into such a difficult role when he's just joined.

i agree, too soon to go full stones.

pep gave it a try during the west ham game:
“Kyle Walker on Pep Guardiola's tactics: "I think teams work us out, find the strategy of how they feel they're going to play/defend against us. When we can build up in different ways, that puts another tool in our toolbox. At the start of West Ham (A), we played with me wide...

All of a sudden he's pulled us inside and said me and Josko [Gvardiol], 'Go in the middle'. I feel today there’s a lot of players who can play in the middle and out wide. Last year there was probably only John [Stones] that could really do it...

He's put pressure on Manu [Akanji] at the start of the season, he’s doing it with me and Josko... He knows when is right to let certain players go, bring players in, freshen things up, give people challenges. A fine balance and it seems to work...”

 

[JewelZee]

yeah it was barišić, 80 minutes of him being horrible and useless, sosa got 10 minutes + injury time.

here’s one of joško’s good moves. he also had a couple super precise long balls to our strikers but well, those aren’t christopher nkunku… basically, cloning gvardiol would solve a lot of our issues.

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We haven't really seen Josko, Rodri, and Johnny Stones all on the field at one time. Can you imagine the level of long passing, breaking the lines, and switching play that having those three on the pitch all at one time will bring. People are panicking when they have no idea how potent this squad will become in the not too distant future...I hope to see this as soon as a week from tomorrow : )

 

[supercity88]

We haven't really seen Josko, Rodri, and Johnny Stones all on the field at one time. Can you imagine the level of long passing, breaking the lines, and switching play that having those three on the pitch all at one time will bring. People are panicking when they have no idea how potent this squad will become in the not too distant future...I hope to see this as soon as a week from tomorrow : )

With the way Brighton press incessantly, it would be brilliant to see all three of them on the pitch drawing players in and then carving them apart.

 

[Middedon]

Today there was a pretty unflattering article in the Athletic (I copied and pasted the article in the Media thread since it’s behind a paywall - I won’t do it here because its so long) about City being weak defensively on the left and teams are now exploiting it to much larger degree. With the quote, “Somehow the club keep upgrading that side of their defense but get worse.” It clearly wasn’t a flattering article to Josko or Ake.

Curious what others with more tactical insight think.

 

[Haaland94]

Today there was a pretty unflattering article in the Athletic (I copied and pasted the article in the Media thread since it’s behind a paywall - I won’t do it here because its so long) about City being weak defensively on the left and teams are now exploiting it to much larger degree. With the quote, “Somehow the club keep upgrading that side of their defense but get worse.” It clearly wasn’t a flattering article to Josko or Ake.

Curious what others with more tactical insight think.

I read your post in the media thread. Thanks for sharing.

Anyway, let's address their claim. "City have allowed more long passes to their left flank this season."
My first thought is, so what what? Our rivals think they can exploit the left side more. On the right, we have the best right-back in the world. On the left, we tend to rotate players much more. Kyle plays all the time, and everyone knows his defensive qualities. It makes sense for our rivals to try their luck on the left. We also didn't play Jack much and opted for a more offensive-minded Doku on that side. All these factors make a valid case for our rivals to try their luck there. On the other hand, the article is missing any concrete evidence that it results in us conceding more goals from attacks on that side. I don't think it's true. I think Josko has been excellent in his 1st season with us at such a young age and is probably the best young defender in the world. Doku has been working his ass off defensively as well. Sure, young players are prone to more errors. Having said that, I don't think they have been the problem at all. Finally, Nathan had a bit of a rough patch for a couple of games this season, but we all know his quality. I think it's the media working their usual anti-City narrative. Nothing to see here as far as I am concerned.

 

[Middedon]

I read your post in the media thread. Thanks for sharing.

Anyway, let's address their claim. "City have allowed more long passes to their left flank this season."
My first thought is, so what what? Our rivals think they can exploit the left side more. On the right, we have the best right-back in the world. On the left, we tend to rotate players much more. Kyle plays all the time, and everyone knows his defensive qualities. It makes sense for our rivals to try their luck on the left. We also didn't play Jack much and opted for a more offensive-minded Doku on that side. All these factors make a valid case for our rivals to try their luck there. On the other hand, the article is missing any concrete evidence that it results in us conceding more goals from attacks on that side. I don't think it's true. I think Josko has been excellent in his 1st season with us at such a young age and is probably the best young defender in the world. Doku has been working his ass off defensively as well. Sure, young players are prone to more errors. Having said that, I don't think they have been the problem at all. Finally, Nathan had a bit of a rough patch for a couple of games this season, but we all know his quality. I think it's the media working their usual anti-City narrative. Nothing to see here as far as I am concerned.

Yeah, on further reading it feels like that Wolves game is really skewing results. It says there were 9 attempted long passes to the left in that game. The graphic shows there have been 29 all season. Without that game I wonder what this looks like. And, it feels like there has been more offensive threat on the left - so naturally more space in behind. But also more potential reward.

 

[richards30]

Still think Josko should be LCB with Dias RCB

 

[Dirty Harry]

Still think Josko should be LCB with Dias RCB

I think Dias is a bit like Laporte on the right, seems far less comfortable and composed, left side just seems to be a better fit.

 

[Haaland94]

Yeah, on further reading it feels like that Wolves game is really skewing results. It says there were 9 attempted long passes to the left in that game. The graphic shows there have been 29 all season. Without that game I wonder what this looks like. And, it feels like there has been more offensive threat on the left - so naturally more space in behind. But also more potential reward.

I agree about the Wolves games. Also, Wolves simply played to their strengths. They have a very fast and tricky player in Pedro Neto on their right-hand side, so naturally they used him a lot against our LB in that match. Ake had a tough time dealing with Neto's pace, so they kept on targeting him.

 

[applejuice]

Today there was a pretty unflattering article in the Athletic (I copied and pasted the article in the Media thread since it’s behind a paywall - I won’t do it here because its so long) about City being weak defensively on the left and teams are now exploiting it to much larger degree. With the quote, “Somehow the club keep upgrading that side of their defense but get worse.” It clearly wasn’t a flattering article to Josko or Ake.

Curious what others with more tactical insight think.

I read the article and discussed with some friends. We don't think that this is a hit piece on Gvardiol or Ake or anyone particularly mentioned in the article but it emphasized on why the it is not working: 1 Gvardiol's defending style is more Leipzig-ish and more center back-ish than a left back and he needs players to press in sync with him. 2 Many other players on the left hand side are also lack of experience playing for City. 3 The writer pointed out there was no easy solution by replacing one player or changing formation. But only weeks of training can help.


IMO It raises questions over our squad planning. We brought in so many players to the same flank and many of them are relatively young and lack of PL experience.

Regarding Gvardiol another article on Manchester evening also discussed about if moving him more inside will benefit the team. So I don't think that TA is really trying to making things out. Ake is more naturally wide player.


BTW I found the stats of defensive actions very interesting. It is astonishing to see how much the defensive action by left midfielders drops. Most people will take Kova a better defender than Gundo. But stats tell us different story!