A a few weeks ago, Pep Guardiola was asked about Manchester City’s shortage of options. “If we dream that the attacker is going to solve our problems,” Guardiola replied, “we are not going to win the matches. What will help us to still be there is the way we play. ”
One of the hallmarks of this strange season, with its relentless attacks of games and incessantly shifting narratives, is that what could once have been considered deviant or remarkable, now barely passes with a mumble. Sunday 19.15 kick off. Champions League matches are moved to Hungary. And, perhaps strangest of all: Manchester City are on track to win the Premier League while playing big pieces of the season without a recognized goal scorer.
In part, the history of the Premier League champions is the history of its most prolific goal scorers. From Alan Shearer at Blackburn to Thierry Henry at Arsenal to Jamie Vardy at Leicester, no team in the history of the competition has won without a reliable goal scorer. Or, more often, several. Alex Ferguson always counted on being able to call on four goal scorers to allow for fluctuations in form or fitness. The same was the case with City’s first two title winners under Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini.
This season, by contrast, City started with just two recognized strikers in Sergio Agüero and Gabriel Jesus. Both missed large parts of the season due to injury or Covid-19. And although Jesus contributed four league goals, and Agüero would appear in the second half of the season, City have largely learned to function without them. Ilkay Gündogan is their leading scorer (nine), followed by Raheem Sterling (eight), Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez (five each). In total, strikers have taken 3% of City’s ratings this season. Quietly, imperceptibly, Guardiola City formed the first elite team of the Premier League in the Premier League.
This is perhaps the main point of contrast between City and their opponents on Saturday night. It is now more than three years since Guardiola slyly referred to Tottenham as the “Harry Kane team”, a label that at the time felt unfair but now feels completely appropriate. Under José Mourinho, Tottenham have transformed into a team that has largely shone for Kane, whether as a goal scorer, creator or outside ball, and who looks robbed in his absence.
And so Saturday’s play brings together in many ways two contrasting visions of attacking play: one built around the talismanic characteristics of one or two brilliant individuals, and one built around an organic, mutating collective. In part, City’s post-attacker era is merely a continuation of a long-term move away from the traditional reliance on a striker, which can often be marked against massive defense or pushed out of play. Liverpool’s use of Roberto Firmino, whose primary function is to create space and opportunities for Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané, falls into the same category.
To without a traditional no. 9 to play is, of course, hardly a novelty: it has often been a feature of Guardiola sides in the past. What does feel new is the virtually total absence of a defined focal point. Lionel Messi was still the main goal scorer in Barcelona: you just did not know where he would appear next. In contrast, Guardiola has used a revolving cast of players in the nominal number 9 film this season: Jesus, Mahrez, Foden, Gündogan, Ferran Torres and Kevin De Bruyne. Foden’s versatile role in Liverpool’s 4-1 draw this past weekend – partly forward, partly wing, partly ball winner – feels like the expression of this principle. “If we are not playing with a typical forward, the people need to move a little more,” Guardiola said. “But we have to get in the box.”
To some extent, Guardiola’s hand was forced by circumstances. Until the pandemic, he only once designated a Premier League starting XI without Agüero or Jesus being in it. Asked earlier in the season why City did not just sign another striker, Guardiola shrugged that they could not afford it. Yet City have spent more than £ 300 million on defenders over the past four seasons without signing a first-team striker. Nathan Aké cost £ 40 million and started five league games. It’s hard not to see at least a hint of dogma there.
So why? It’s partly the physical demands of this season that have forced everyone to relax their press a bit. While former city dwellers raced furiously high on the field, aiming to win the ball quickly and deliver it immediately to Jesus or Agüero, the press is now more focused on enforcing passing options and enforcing errors.
In part, Jesus’ indifferent form in front of the goal persuaded Guardiola to explore other options. The goal scorer himself has admitted that he needs to improve his finishing, and he needs to succeed regularly if he can shoot. But his contribution without the ball remains unparalleled, and it is telling that Guardiola responded last Sunday to Liverpool’s withdrawal of Thiago Alcântara and Curtis Jones by introducing Jesus just four minutes later and realizing that Liverpool are now more vulnerable to the ball in losing dangerous areas.
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Time will tell if this is just a phase. Agüero is expected to return within the next few weeks, and with his contract this summer, City are linked to some of the most prosperous strikers in the continent: Erling Braut Haaland, Romelu Lukaku, Messi, even Kane.
Yet in City’s post-striker formation, a broader truth can be seen: that goals are not achieved to players as much as by systems at the top of football, and that titles are largely won in the same way. One of the defining characteristics of this City group is how many of its players – Foden, Gündogan, João Cancelo – are comfortable in various positions.
Perhaps this is the trend that will distinguish the title winners of the near future: teams with multiple threats, multiple focal points, midfielders on midfielders on midfielders, attacks that repeat and mutate with enchanting speed. Or maybe it’s a trend that will define City alone, and a coach who, in his relentless thirst for evolution, may have just hit his latest masterpiece.