Fernandinho, Man City's unsung hero?

wr8_utd said:
City should take a risk of playing Otamendi in defense and move this guy back to MF. Their midfield is just unbelievably open withou him and Rodri is an astonishing downgrade.
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Stones is injured, but yeah City would be better in the bigger games with him in midfield and Otamendi/Garcia at the back.
 
They missed his nous for tactical fouls. Although, I think he spent most of his time in the center of the pitch anyway.
 
He is a massive twat to be fair, always the first to the ref and bigging himself up in 'fights'
 
wr8_utd said:
City should take a risk of playing Otamendi in defense and move this guy back to MF. Their midfield is just unbelievably open withou him and Rodri is an astonishing downgrade.
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I dont think its just Fernandinho. You'd normally expect Silva and De Bruyne to be relentless winning the ball back in a derby but they werent. Our midfield and defence had a relatively easy game in possession.
I think i'd play both Rodri and Fernandinho in midfield for a while. None of their cb's (including Fernandinho) are good enough to deal with how often they get exposed in the current system. Laporte and Kompany are a lot better in personal duels than any of their current options but i think they'd be having a hard time without the front 5 pressing as much as they should be.
A front 4 of Aguero, Sterling, De Bruyne + 1 is still going to score loads of goals.
 
caid said:
I think i'd play both Rodri and Fernandinho in midfield for a while.
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I think that’s where Guardiola’s ardency to his style of play comes to bite him. It’s dogmatic, almost. Reminds me of his first season where he was constantly playing with ‘inside fullbacks’.
 
DWelbz19 said:
I think that’s where Guardiola’s ardency to his style of play comes to bite him. It’s dogmatic, almost. Reminds me of his first season where he was constantly playing with ‘inside fullbacks’.
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Don't understand why he's loathe to return Fernandinho to his natural position, yet he'll play a rookie FB in their 2 biggest games of the season. With Fernandinho in MF we would have been fouled before getting those killer passes out to our forwards. It then wouldn't have mattered if he'd had a rookie CB next to Stones as they wouldn't have been exposed that much anyway.
 
DWelbz19 said:
I think that’s where Guardiola’s ardency to his style of play comes to bite him. It’s dogmatic, almost. Reminds me of his first season where he was constantly playing with ‘inside fullbacks’.
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They don't have the personnel to play with a double pivot. It's not being dogmatic, it's being rational and playing to your strengths (having top #8s in your squad)
 
adexkola said:
They don't have the personnel to play with a double pivot. It's not being dogmatic, it's being rational and playing to your strengths (having top #8s in your squad)
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(And having zero top #CBs)

They would be far stronger defensively playing Rodri and Fernandinho together with De Bruyne ahead, than they are with Fernandinho as a CB. Specifically in bigger games.
 
DWelbz19 said:
(And having zero top #CBs)

They would be far stronger defensively playing Rodri and Fernandinho together with De Bruyne ahead, than they are with Fernandinho as a CB. Specifically in bigger games.
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To play with a double pivot (and drop one of De Bruyne/Silva) you would need more creativity from the full backs to compensate. And you'd be shifting De Bruyne out of his favorite position in the right half space.

They would be stronger defensively with Fernandinho in midfield but a double pivot would be overkill, where the additional defensive cover would be negated by less personnel in the opponent's half.

This is common sense if someone like me can see this.
 
Has signing Rodri accidentally broken their midfield set up? They were so good defensively last season. Barely gave the opposition a sniff. This year their midfield seems like it's easier to bypass.
 
Klopper76 said:
Has signing Rodri accidentally broken their midfield set up? They were so good defensively last season. Barely gave the opposition a sniff. This year their midfield seems like it's easier to bypass.
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To some extent I think. In addition, Mendy is not able to tuck into midfield the way a Zinchenko (or Delph from 2 seasons ago) can, providing additional support. Fernandinho has been great in defending as the last man, but last season City were rarely in this position. And when they were, their CBs were fit or in better form than they've been this season.
 
Whether it is here or there, it is hard to escape the conclusion that guardiolas failure to adapt tactically to the personel at his disposal is the major reason for their decrease in results, above and beyond the injuries they've had. They should not be this exposed from this.
 
adexkola said:
To some extent I think. In addition, Mendy is not able to tuck into midfield the way a Zinchenko (or Delph from 2 seasons ago) can, providing additional support. Fernandinho has been great in defending as the last man, but last season City were rarely in this position. And when they were, their CBs were fit or in better form than they've been this season.
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I feel like they're lacking a bit at full back as well. I might be wrong but I wasn't impressed with Angelino on the weekend. James was running off of him constantly in the first half.
 
Klopper76 said:
I feel like they're lacking a bit at full back as well. I might be wrong but I wasn't impressed with Angelino on the weekend. James was running off of him constantly in the first half.
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I don't think Angelino has been great but to be fair to him he's like the 3rd backup.

Mendy has completely regressed. Even his crossing has gone to shit. The injuries must have had some sort of impact.

Walker has been good.
 
B20 said:
Whether it is here or there, it is hard to escape the conclusion that guardiolas failure to adapt tactically to the personel at his disposal is the major reason for their decrease in results, above and beyond the injuries they've had. They should not be this exposed from this.
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Yeah but if common sense Adexkola sees how slightly tinkering with your team to be defensively stronger in bigger games will hugely impact the creativity of a side who have scored 64 goals in 24 games, what do you think Pep sees?
 
B20 said:
Whether it is here or there, it is hard to escape the conclusion that guardiolas failure to adapt tactically to the personel at his disposal is the major reason for their decrease in results, above and beyond the injuries they've had. They should not be this exposed from this.
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Eh, bit part A, bit part B. Injuries and a decline in form for the older guard makes it really difficult to maintain the same level from seasons past while making adjustments on the fly. Even SAF had his lulls in-between periods of dominance (not ascribed to tactical ineptitude).

There have been moments this season where City would have been better off with a few tactical tweaks. They'd still be some ways off the top of the table though.
 
B20 said:
Whether it is here or there, it is hard to escape the conclusion that guardiolas failure to adapt tactically to the personel at his disposal is the major reason for their decrease in results, above and beyond the injuries they've had. They should not be this exposed from this.
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His system is too fragile if one cb getting injured messes them up this much. Both he and Klopp are systems managers and not adjusting that well kind of comes with the territory. Klopp needs hardworking, atlethic players to make his system work which are pretty easy to come by. Guardiola on the other hand seems to need a very specific set of skills that only the very best players in the world qualify for.
 
Klopper76 said:
Has signing Rodri accidentally broken their midfield set up? They were so good defensively last season. Barely gave the opposition a sniff. This year their midfield seems like it's easier to bypass.
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I think the long term plan was to slowly swap the two around like they did with the two Silva's but the injuries have dictated otherwise.
 
caid said:
His system is too fragile if one cb getting injured messes them up this much. Both he and Klopp are systems managers and not adjusting that well kind of comes with the territory. Klopp needs hardworking, atlethic players to make his system work which are pretty easy to come by. Guardiola on the other hand seems to need a very specific set of skills that only the very best players in the world qualify for.
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It's a combination of factors, not just Laporte's injury.

The second bolded is nonsense. Otherwise anyone in the league would be able to replicate Klopp's system.
 
adexkola said:
It's a combination of factors, not just Laporte's injury.

The second bolded is nonsense. Otherwise anyone in the league would be able to replicate Klopp's system.
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I've seen quite a lot of teams replicate large parts of Klopps system with some success so ... meh to that point. Losing some of the players he has might cost them quality but it would still work and still be functional imo. He's pretty consistently had them overachieving relative to the quality of players he had available. There were never glaring weakness in the team that couldn't be explained by a weak player.
Guardiola is underachieving badly with the squad at his disposal as he did in his first season because he hasn't got the perfect mix of players in every single position. Rodri clearly isn't a bad dm, Stones and Otamendi aren't that poor. They're like 6 points ahead of us which is pitiful with the squad he has.
 
adexkola said:
Eh, bit part A, bit part B. Injuries and a decline in form for the older guard makes it really difficult to maintain the same level from seasons past while making adjustments on the fly. Even SAF had his lulls in-between periods of dominance (not ascribed to tactical ineptitude).

There have been moments this season where City would have been better off with a few tactical tweaks. They'd still be some ways off the top of the table though.
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They are averaging 2 points per game. That's not even a title challenge in most seasons.

Think being within a point of Leicester is the least to expect with the squad they have, even with injuries, age etc.
 
It's very apparent how much city depend on kompany, fernandinho and aguero as their backbone of the team. With all of them either gone or getting along a little bit. It'll be fun to see if pep is capable of recreating this team.

Something which SAF was so brilliant at
 
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