Introducing Manchester City’s new attacking formation: 4-2-5 (yes, you read that right)
The picture makes you look twice.
It is three minutes into Manchester City’s pre-season friendly against Bayern Munich in Japan, and the 2022-23 treble winners are playing with a new formation.
It is a 4-2-5.
That’s right — there’s nobody in goal.
Jack Grealish is just out of shot, on the left end of the forward line, in the screengrab below. But forget about him and focus your attention on City’s left-sided centre-back. The guy with the ball at his feet. The one wearing a luminous-yellow goalkeeper kit.
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Look. At. Ederson.
Even by Pep Guardiola’s standards, this feels extreme.
That wasn’t an isolated incident either. It was a tactic.
Less than 10 minutes later, Ruben Dias holds onto the ball when he is confronted by Bayern forward Serge Gnabry and waits for Ederson to step up and join him in the City back line.
The goalkeeper duly arrives, receives possession in what you could describe as an orthodox/unorthodox (delete as you see fit) back-four shape and…
…feeds the ball wide left to Nathan Ake.
City have beaten the first line of the Bayern press with the minimum of fuss.
Bayern, not surprisingly, seem baffled as to what to do. They were outnumbered by six players to four, but if they committed a fifth man forward, it would leave them five-versus-five at the back.
In other words, Ederson stepping into the back four created a guaranteed overload for City inside their own half – provided he didn’t get caught on the ball, which did happen on one occasion:
Here, late in the first half, Ederson is playing in advance of both his central defenders, bouncing the ball off Mateo Kovacic in a standard City third-man passing movement to release Dias…
….who is able to deliver a pass to the feet of Julian Alvarez, taking six Bayern
Read on theathletic.com
