City struggled to a win over Swansea in a game which for the first half was almost a mirror image of last season’s encounter. The home side huffed and puffed with no cutting edge whatsoever whilst The Swans looked the more likely to score.
The Blues looked void of ideas, had no penetration and could not get the ball forward quickly enough. The tempo was so slow that there were never any gaps to exploit and on the rare occasions that City pressed Swansea were able to get back into position and defend the attack.
I’ve said it before 4-4-2 is a dated formation, which has been exploited since 2004 when Rafa Benitez bought players like Garcia to Liverpool in order to exploit the space between the two banks of four. It’s simply too easy to play around this formation, surely it’s not the way forward for City.
On Saturday this also saw Tevez and Aguero isolated up front, withdrawn from the game with little impact. The midfield could not get the ball forward quick enough, whenever they did the space was closed down. Frustrating times for the home side.
All that changed when Mancini got a grip of the tactics in the second half. Kolarov went off, allowing Balotelli on up front, this pushed Aguero out to the left (which I’m still not sure about) but more importantly allowed Tevez to drop deeper and take hold of the game by the scruff of the neck.
When City plays in my favourite 4-2-3-1 they play with two strikers, one in a deeper role, linking play. This contrasts to Chelsea who employs three interchangeable, attacking midfielders and only one striker. Tevez showed last night he was back to his best and in the deeper striker role it could be argued that City play it better than Chelsea (they have copied us haven’t they?). As well as being a creative force Carlos was also a goal threat and a menace around the box.
His goal, when it came was a thing of beauty. Such accuracy, combined with pace and power is difficult to achieve from that distance. When you view the angle from behind the shot it, he really didn’t have much to aim for. It was a strike fit to win any game. In fact he hit it so hard that Vorm, the Swans keeper injured himself trying to save it.
Silva is absent but has not been at his best this term, whilst both Nasri and Toure seem to have gone off the boil. Their creative juices have not been flowing like last season and City have really missed that creative spark. Step forward Carlito, he showed what City have been missing. He picked the ball up, attacked defenders, went past people, shot at goal, brought people into play and effectively ran the game in the second half. This was the Tevez of 2009-10 and 2010-11, I hope he is here to stay.
If he can display this form week in week out and the aforementioned three can get back to their best City can start to threaten defences up and down the country again. Our number 32 will surely impress on Mancini that he is the best man to play as the deeper striker, none of the other three can play that role as well as he can. Mario and Edin are more of a number 9, whilst Sergio can play deeper but as a number 10; he needs to be closer to the goal.
The stats will show that Carlos completed forty seven of his sixty two passes and had three out of four shots on target. It might not be obvious from these, but for me he dominated that second half and really made City tick and provided inspiration at a time when we really needed it. At a time when other strikers around the league seem to be scoring freely I would bet Tevez is chuffed to bits with that performance. He should be he saved the day.
Grant Mills
@mancinismarvels
