Lineups

City lined up in their standard 4-2-3-1, but with Silva out injured Toure played behind Aguero. Toure being more defensively minded than Silva, it looked like a 4-3-3 at times. Caballero came in in goal for the injured Joe Hart.

Southampton played an almost identical system, on paper a 4-2-3-1 however Ward-Prowse is more of a midfielder than a number 10 type player, so it was often a 4-3-3. Yoshida filled in at RB while Long lead the line for the injured Pelle.

Overview

Southampton were quite content to allow City the ball early on as they sat quite deep, however they grew into the game as it went on. City looked to get at Southampton out wide quite a bit, and Kolorov in particular caused a lot of problems. City were very positive and attempted to press whenever possible. Southampton tried to use the pace of Mane to lead counter attacks forward.

Mane cheating

It was a noticeable ploy from Southampton to allow Mane to “cheat” by not tracking back all the way, he was the most advanced player other than Long, and although this worked well at this it did cause problems at others, as City exploited the space that he left.

Notice his position here, as the space he has left is exploited by Sterling coming in off his wing, this lead to a shot on goal from City.

High City Pressure

City looked to press very high up regularly and did so to good effect, creating numerous chances from this pressure, and scoring their first goal from it. Here we can see Sterling pressing Yoshida, who has very few options as Mane has taken up a strange position up front alongside Long, perhaps expecting a long ball. Because of this, Yoshida gets caught in possession and City are right on the front foot.

After Sterling wins the ball notice how many Southampton players are caught ahead of it. This is one of the major advantages of pressing high up, not only do you win the ball back close to goal, you also bypass much of the oppositions defense. He runs almost completely unopposed to the opposition goal before scoring (albeit with a bit of luck)

City done this on more than one occasion throughout the match and had good success at pressing some of the defenders. Here’s another example which nearly lead to an Aguero goal. Notice how unorganised the defense is after losing the ball.

Virgil Van Dijk

Van Dijk recently arrived from Celtic and the step up in class was noticeable as he struggled with his distribution and positioning. During the first half he misplaced several passes and attempted to carry the ball out of the defense before being dispossessed. More than one of these incidents almost lead to a city goal. His positioning was also extremely questionable at times.

Look at the gap between him and his full back here, this is especially poor as it’s the only option that Toure has on. The mistake lead to a ball into the box that City almost scored from. It’s harsh to single out a player like this, but Van Dijk was one of City’s best players in the first half, as they could have easily scored 2 or 3 goals from his mistakes.

City Positional Structure

City’s positional structure was questionable at times, with the central area in front of the back four a particular problem. Fernandinho and Delph got sucked out of position at times, either into a wide area of into the back four. One extreme example of this was where both of them joined the back four, essentially making a back 6.

At other times they got drawn towards the ball leaving the space between the midfield and defense completely open. One of these examples almost lead to a Southampton goal, and against better teams this would have been really exploited. One of City’s biggest problems in European competition has been this disjointedness.

Conclusion

City started off the half much the livelier, scoring first from some good Sterling pressure and then from a deflected shot off of a corner. They pressed well and were unlucky not to score more. Southampton grew into the half as it went on, though will need to stop some of the individual mistakes that could have been punished much more severely today. Overall both teams were quite good in the first half, with the exception of Virgil Van Dijk, however there is still quite a bit to be worked on coming into the Christmas period.