The clash between Liverpool and Manchester City was characterized by intense tactical battles and high-quality football.
According to an analysis by EBL shared on social media platform X, both Liverpool and Manchester City utilised the same pressing structure against the opposition’s 3-2-5 high build.
The #8’s jumped to the #6’s, the wingers shadow marked the #8’s and pressed the wide centre backs, and the #6 was ready to jump to press the ball-side #8.
However, there was a lot of variation within that from each team.
Liverpool pressed in man-to-man fashion from City’s goal kicks. City pressed zonally here, though.
We can see that below as the situational #9’s shadow mark the pivot with KDB ready to jump to the ball-side #6.
Pep did this because he believed that the aforementioned pressing structure could apply sufficient pressure to the ball whilst also maintaining a defensive overload when Liverpool kicked long.
We can see that as City have 5 players back against Liverpool’s momentary front 4.
However, City were not linear in their defensive approach.
They mixed between zonal and man-marking. When the moment was right, Stones stepped into midfield to press Liverpool’s #8.
This created an aggressive man-to-man moment, although it left City 5v5/3v3 in the last line.
Alvarez also inverted to press Quansah in their 4-2-4 build with Aké pushing on aggressively against Bradley on the side which was another moment in which City went man-to-man.
However, City did not do this with reliability and Liverpool exploited their zonal press.
City’s press was undeniably compact, but Liverpool regularly played through and around their press thanks to their quality & structure.
This isn’t to say City failed to do the same against Liverpool’s press, because they actually had success in the first few minutes of the game.
We can see that here as Liverpool are in the mid-block & are slightly more passive than usual which gives City’s #6’s more time on the ball, albeit with less access to the #8’s passing-lane wise.
However, City play into the #6’s, Liverpool jump, KDB moves inside & City find him.
Liverpool also had similar moments of success in the game, though, as when Haaland and De Bruyne were shadow marking passing lanes centrally, for example, van Dijk had extra time on the ball to find Bradley who could use the 1v1 moment to create situations like we see below.
The reason Liverpool had the better of the game as a whole, though, was because they pressed in man-to-man fashion from goal kicks which caused City big problems in that phase but also because Liverpool were better technically as a whole.
They made less silly mistakes than City.
Rodri was uncharacteristically poor and City, as a whole, played too vertically and tried to find their #8’s between the lines too often when the objective was to find them in the right moment but also to ‘feel’ the game & to kill Liverpool and Anfield’s will with ball retention.
Although Liverpool’s #8’s pressed high against City’s double pivot, there were moments in the game where they marked both De Bruyne & Bernardo in the half spaces which left Rodri & Stones with extra time & space on the ball in midfield, but they didn’t create that moment enough..
Liverpool, on the other hand, must take massive credit for their performance. How many times can we say that City were technically insecure? It doesn’t happen, really, and the sheer fact that it did can be attributed to the impact of Liverpool’s compact press in a fierce setting.
It wasn’t just that, though. The likes of van Dijk, Endo, Mac Allister, Elliott and others were immaculate in terms of ball retention when Liverpool did turn the ball over.
Combine that aspect of their game with their typically dynamic on-ball approach & they deserved to win.
