How to beat park the bus

[NQCitizen]

That only works if there aren’t 18 players in the box though.

Ironically one of the easiest solutions is to play a false 9, who'll rotate with the wingers and interchange on the edge of the box to win fouls but we just sold one of the world's best to accommodate a more traditional poacher

 

[kunaguero10]

Get holding midfielders & centre halves who are a threat from long shots. Get 3-4 hard accurate shots from distance making the keeper work, and he’ll soon be into his teammates yelling at them to close down

 

[Del_Bosque]

We have played against “deep blocks” or whatever the fashionable term is now, how we’ve done it is a variety of ways

9 or so outfield players who can play short quick passing when required

Forwards and midfielders who have great off the ball movement

Overlapping fullbacks

Couple of players who can cross from deep. KDB, Cancelo

At least 2 players who can slow the game down on the edge of the box then speed it up when they see a gap generated - peak Gundo, Silva, Yaya

Attacking players who can 1 touch finish Gundo, Aguero,

What we absolutely don’t fucking need is the signings we’ve been focusing on players where their best attributes are physical like Akanji, Nunes

On the treble run we got caught up in keeping it tight and letting moments of magic from KDB, Gundo & Mahrez get us the goals required

We need to go back to being the type of team that valued on the ball quality like Laporte and Cancelo style players more than physcality players like Akanji and Ake

 

[mccity]

I mean, we've had problems with bus parking teams since day 1 of Pep's tenure. The fact is, any great team struggles with it. We all remember what happened to Barcelona in the CL in 2010 and 2012. They were a rather good team if I recall

There are no guarantees with games against such defensive sides, but the best thing is to be able to create lots of chances and hope you take one of them

Funnily enough, the solution lies in fixing City's biggest issues of this season. We need more creativity (in whatever form) and more physicality to deal with counters. Creativity will create us chances, and players who can deal with counters will give us confidence to try something braver with the ball

I say solution, but it's still up in the air. You could make an all-time attack-minded City XI with players in their prime, and they'd struggle with a parked bus on occasion. Just fewer occasions, which is what we should aim for

 

[.db.]

Previous seasons we had higher quality players.

We dont this season, and we have suffered as a result.

Pep already found the solution though, he abandoned the back 3 to have an extra number in midfield and played a more passing game on the ground via the 2422.

These last 2 games, perhaps Pep was surprised both Southampton and Palace parked the bus, but he went to the back 3 again.

He has sorta undid the good work he already discovered, we demolished Palace in the 2422 because we played brave.

Instead we had no numbers in midfield, so the CBs just played long balls.

Pep’s style of play must have creative players to unlock the defences his tactics pin back. Players on the D must be creative, with good end product.

We’ve gone from prime De Bruyne, David Silva, Gündoğan and Bernardo Silva… and don’t have anywhere near that level in those positions now. We need to get the next young batch of the same level players in if we want to stay at the level we were.

After seeing the Southampton and Palace games and seeing how this team is crying out for new young versions of those players in those positions, us seemingly pulling out of the Wirtz deal is hugely disappointing.

 

[Blue_Lightsaber]

It's called a parked bus for a reason, you're not supposed to get by one.

The fact City have managed to do it pretty much every week is testament to how great this cycle has been under Pep.

The only 'tactic' to overcome it is exactly what we do, try to move people out of position and hope someone switches off or runs out of steam.

Sure, you can load it into the box or whip a cross in from deeper, when Kev could manage it, but it's not a tactic to set up for prior to a game.

Fact is, we play the law of averages and sometimes you can be on the wrong side of that, like yesterday, Southampton or even Norwich away the other year.

We don't have a striker like Sergio anymore who can work on the front post run or operate with little back lift inside the six yard box.

Haaland's entire MO is to hang out of the six yard box and wait for a pull back which needs to be increasingly precise, because defenders know he needs it out of his feet for such a big unit.

All it needs is an eight and ten who are able to pull the strings and two full-backs who have the raw recovery pace when a move breaks down, like Walker had.

This might make us need a bath but what about if we try Arteta's tactics of climbing over the bus and heading it in the goals??

We had people with great headers once with Laporte and Ake but Akanji and Dias have been bad.

Khusanov and Nico seem to be bright spots.. if we can pair them up with 2-3 good headers and a good delivery man.. we should be able to do it.

I still remember the 21-22 season.. we scored 17 goals from corners and only conceded 1. But it's been downhill since on corners then when Laporte got injured.