Manchester City dispatched Huddersfield in ruthless fashion on Sunday and the result served to remind people just how good the blue half of Manchester can be. And just like many of their great performances over recent seasons, sublime positional play was at the heart.

Asymmetrical Formation

City abandoned the 2-3-5 from their win at Arsenal and set up in a 3-1-4-2 against the terriers, a structure that was favoured at the start of last season until Mendy’s injury conditioned a switch to a 4-3-3/2-3-5. Without a natural wingback on the left, Guardiola decided to return to the inverted full-back system of 2016/17 with central midfielder Fabian Delph often lining up on the left side of a back four. This formation turned out to be the backbone of their title win but the return of Mendy from injury means City now have the option of playing a 3-1-4-2 with aggressive wingbacks bombing up and down the flank.

Aymeric Laporte, Vincent Kompany and John Stones made up the central defensive trio while Fernandinho played in the pivote role. Ilkay Gündogan and David Silva were the central midfielders and Strike duo Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus led the lines. In the wide areas, Guardiola mixed full-back with winger/midfielder, something he likes to do when using only one wide player on each flank. In this case, Benjamin Mendy was on the left and Bernardo Silva was on the right. Pep seems to use this lopsidedness to provide balance to his teams. With Mendy dropping to support the buildup and Bernardo Silva staying high most of the time, the system had shadows of a 4-3-3.

This asymmetry was also reflected in midfield where Gündogan played a more conservative role alongside the adventurous David Silva.

We can see this lopsidedness in the buildup to City’s second goal. Gündogan has dropped even deeper than Fernandinho, while David Silva is almost as high as the two centre forwards. Mendy is deep enough to support Laporte and Bernardo Silva (out of frame) is holding the width high up on the right touchline.

Another thing worth pointing out is that the 3-1-4-2 is very similar to the 3-4-3 diamond Guardiola played in under Johan Cruyff at Barcelona. Apart from the general asymmetry already mentioned, the main difference is that there are two centre forwards rather than a number 9 and a number 10. But with either Aguero or Jesus often dropping deep into midfield, the central diamond was situationally created.

The fluidity of City in possession is startling. Anyone from Sergio Aguero to John Stones can provide width at any one moment. They have mastered total football while still being disciplined and positionally conscious. It is maybe Guardiola’s greatest achievement that he has struck such a perfect balance between structure and fluidity.

Patterns of Play

Like any good positional structure, the 3-1-4-2 gave City a number of potential patterns of play that allowed them to create superiority and ultimately chances in front of goal.

Many of them involved Benjamin Mendy on the left flank. All though the frenchman had a deeper starting position than Bernardo Silva, that isn’t to say he was more defensive. He was just more vertically mobile — bombing up and down the wing. This was exemplified by the home side’s second goal that was mentioned previously. Mendy received the ball on the left touchline from Laporte and turned to drive forward and inside to the left half space. Jesus complemented this movement by shifting out to the wide area.

Mendy played a reverse pass to the wider Jesus who continued the forward movement and after a couple of deflections on the edge of the box, the ball was swept home by the Brazilian. This is the explosiveness that Mendy brings to the game. He initially exploited qualitative superiority from the 1v1 before breaking pressure and releasing to a wide free man in Jesus.

As well as quick transitions from deep, Mendy’s crosses into the likes of Aguero was another key aspect of Man City’s play. After the initial buildup, Mendy would move up to take a position that was similarly high to Bernardo Silva on the right. From there City would try to create space for him to put crosses in. This proved to be quite a simple task because Huddersfield defended so narrowly. Passes straight out to the wing from the centre-backs were common and Mendy was usually in enough space to wrap his foot around the ball. The space on the left could be increased with runs forward in the half space from the attacking midfielders. These movements caused Huddersfield’s last line to contract and open up significant gaps on the flank.

Another potential avenue to superiority came from the dropping movements of the front two. With at least one of them in midfield for large parts of the game, there were overloads to be exploited. Quick combinations and breakthroughs made good use of the free man. Alternatively, forward movements from the centre-backs had a similar effect. This was a particularly prevalent aspect of City’s play in this game because there were always two defenders covering for any centre-back that carried the ball into midfield. John Stones was important in this respect, sometimes driving as far as the 18 yard box in an attempt to disorganise Huddersfield’s extremely deep defensive block.

Guardiola has thought up as many buildup patterns as there are stars in the galaxy. Most of them involve the goalkeeper playing it out along the ground, but others have been designed with the exact purpose of taking the opponent by surprise. Aguero’s opener showed this perfectly. Huddersfield pushed up and marked the hosts man to man off a goal kick, hoping to press their short buildup, but Guardiola had an ace up his sleeve — he’d told Aguero to stay high up the pitch. So high in fact, that his marker had drifted off him and left him free. Ederson spotted this and played it long to link up with Aguero’s diagonal run. The Argentine then finished with fantastic individual skill.

Late Tweaks

Guardiola switched back to a 2-3-5 after bringing on Riyad Mahrez and Leroy Sané. Mendy and Stones drifted inside next to Fernandinho. Already 5-1 up at the time, City were no less ruthless. With two out and out wingers, their wide play had more freedom. Sané made a clever run between full-back and centre-back in the lead up to the sixth goal while Mahrez showed his ability to cut inside and shoot — play reminiscent of his Leicester days. The fact that Man City could switch systems towards the end of a game and continue to be just as effective shows the wealth of options at their disposal — both in terms of personnel and tactics — that will make them so formidable over the course of a 38 game season.