1. Manchester City

 Manchester City is a team which bases its game on a set defence and many passes before the end of the action. Over the years, their coach Pep Guardiola has created a game structure in attack whose primary focus is the prevention of the opponent’s counterattacks. With this objective, the role of full back players, often playing in half spaces at different heights and who are complemented by attacking midfielders in the occupation of these spaces, is crucial.In general, City have somewhat passive movements of the full backs in the half spaces after leading the ball to the stopper, and sometimes in situations when the ball is in front of them, most often with a winger.Also, the movements of the full back players in the wing position on the open ball from the central zones can be much more active, where the side players very cautiously conquer the field in depth and thus prevent progressive passes that throw out many opposing players. Such problems are especially visible when stoppers (Stones and Ake) play in the position of the full backs. Such attacks, when they end with a loose ball, open larger spaces between the back and midfield lines because the wing players stand too deep, thus opening spaces between the lines for a second or two before they can close them. It is especially important to emphasize that these problems are much smaller when City uses the overload tactic (positioning more players on one side of the field) because they very well set the opponent players on desired position and then use quick side changes, which to a good extent cancels the above problems.As their game is based on controlling the game with the ball, the role of the last passes in the prevention of the opponent’s counterattacks is important. Many final City passes end up with balls in the air – usually parabolic balls from half space with good control of the zone under the ball with five players, most often in a 2-3 structure. Passes in the air make it difficult for the opponent to open counters because they are much more difficult to control and play accurately.As City narrows the field in attacking the opponent’s goal, they have many shots that end up in the opponent’s block, and therefore the matches in which they use the width of the field better and get more open shots are a good indicator of their victories.Another important factor in choosing to play the opponent’s system is the choice of passing and moving into the middle or wing zone. City occupies the central zones better and overloads them, than it does in the wing zones. Their system is primed to control the middle of the pitch and if they are allowed any space in the central zone they will use it very well, which cannot be said for all situations on the wing.The most effective actions in the wing positions are the dribbles towards the centre of the field by the wing players, to which they have very good movements of the players in front of the ball (further wing, 8 and striker). They do most of the dribbling in the back third with wings and 8s, especially in second attacks (after winning loose or nobody’s ball). The entire structure of the game is designed to prevent and allow frontline players to overwork, so it’s no surprise that dribbling percentage is such a good predictor of their success.City is a team that plays pressing for a large part of the game and tries to take the ball away from the opponent in the shortest possible interval. The biggest problems they have are due to the large number of pressing actions on the opponent’s goalkeeper, where they lose their compactness and because of this, often the second ball after the opponent’s long ball. In this way, the opponent enters the final third and creates opportunities and breaks – usually corners.In general, they are too vertical in pressing and it would be good for them to wait a little longer for pressing triggers (the moment when they can direct the opponent’s attack), because the lines below could close the spaces more compactly.They have the biggest problems with long balls and overloading of the back line. The back line tries to defend such attacks with a high line and only a small mistake in closing is enough to open a deep pass for the opponent. They react especially poorly to the overload in the middle of the field in the jump, where their side players remain isolated in the game 1vs1.Another potential disadvantage is the control of long balls, which they try to keep in their possession in a risky way (passing and dribbling) and in this way they provide opportunities for the opponents.The same problem is also reflected in breaks, and the most problems are created by teams that attack all free kicks within 60 m from their goal with many players. The constant attempts to keep the back line high and the weaker pressing reset after the second ball leaves them exposed against this type of action.

2. Liverpool

 Liverpool is a team that bases its game much more on the control of transitions, long balls, and other balls.In their attack, the emphasis is on parabolic deep balls behind the back line, crosses from wing positions and half space, quick short combinations in central zones and diagonal balls.They especially use diagonal balls towards the left side to Roberston, for whom the winger opens space in the wing position with his deep movements, and there is almost no game in which they are offensively efficient, without that segment of the game functioning at a high level.Their attacking structure is still not as clean as City’s. They rely more on the dynamics of actions and excellent counter pressing.The largest number of players are brought into the 16m when the opponent allows them depth to the side players, and then the occupation of the 16m follows with four to five players while the players below control the bounced balls very well after the centre kick.Liverpool creates the most successful attacks after the first and second lost ball, by trying to play the final pass in the inferiority of two to three players. When it seems that the lines below will not compactly accompany such an attack, there is a strong movement towards the ball and a counter-pressing that seeks to take the ball through the duel, cutting the passing lines and taking advantage of the direction of the opponent’s attacks. Since their game is based so much on that segment, the number of won defensive duels is crucial in this phase of the game as well.Transitions work in the same way, where they like to play deep on two or three players in the front line and if the deep ball does not go through, they have an excellent movement of the formation in front of the ball, which provides them with the possibility of counter pressing.It is interesting that they use the same principle with their own and the opponent’s long balls.The only situations when they are not so vertical is when there is an open diagonal ball towards the far side, where they create an excellent surplus in front of the ball with the side players and attack the opponent’s penalty area beautifully in waves.Due to the aforementioned style of play, it is clear that aggressive control of the lost ball plays a key role for them in all phases of the game, and because of this, yellow cards are a good predictor of their results = when the prevention structure moves well under the ball, they win duels and take balls cleanly, and when they are late they fall out and receive an increased number of yellow cards.It should be emphasized that in pressing and counter-pressing actions, they have a great focus on moving towards the ball, and when the situation is played out, they compensate with extremely good descent and defence of the penalty area. The back pressing of the attacking and midfield lines after they have been played is perhaps the best in the world and it is very difficult to play back passes against them when the opposing team enters the final third.

3. Arsenal

 When we analyse Arsenal, we must divide the 2021/22 season into two parts. The first part of the season was very bad, and they were looking for a style of play that suits them. In the first 10 rounds, they were so bad that they were close to the relegation zone.From the 4-2-3-1 system, the team usually had a very weak occupation of the central zones, a lack of width due to premature entry of the wings towards the middle, very high positioned full backs who opened spaces for the counter and risky combinations in the central zones.In the defensive phase, the team had weak pressure on the ball, poorly controlled the far side and especially poorly defended the half spaces because of the back line that passively guarded the goal and because of which the wings and the near midfielders closed those spaces in an undefined and bad way.Because of all the above-mentioned characteristics and transitions, they were disconnected and isolated, and everything pointed to the dismissal of coach Arteta.From the period around the New Year, they found the game in a 4-3-3 formation and since then they have been at the very top of the league in terms of points won. They started playing with the full backs set up in half space, false nine and high 8s as the general setting of the game. The game began to resemble that of City where Arteta worked as an assistant coach before taking over at Arsenal.The main difference is that in attack Arsenal is more focused on playing the wing zones with triangles on the sides that form a side-8 and the wing, and more attack turns through the near midfielder. On both wings, they have wings on opposite feet and in the new system of the game they can reach the wings much more easily, who dribble towards the middle and create excess and play diagonal passing lines in front of them.The moment they started playing that way, they started to control the middle of the field and win many balls from counter pressing. From that moment on, the number of defensive duels won, became a great predictor of their success.A segment that has also taken them to a whole new level is moving towards long balls. Before, they played long balls against the settled defence and counters against isolated players of the offensive line, while now they even anticipate the zones of the second ball with players under the ball, which significantly increased the number of offensive duels won.They use many crosses from half space after the return ball, so that both, they, and City lack width in the attacking phase, which is why they have an increased number of blocked shots because they shoot at the goal in situations when the opponent is compact in width in front of their goal.They have taken the pressing game to a completely new level, they manage to initiate pressing with strikers, wingers and 8s across different widths of the pitch, which was never the case before. In this way, they significantly increased the number of balls won in the opponent’s half, along with, of course, the counter-pressing phase, which we explained in the previous part of the text. On the other hand, they showed problems in pressing actions against teams that play with five players in the back line, where they either opened too much space in the intermediate lines or became too passive and focused on compactly defending their goal without pressing the ball.As their game became more connected, their counters became much better and there they introduced a segment that Liverpool has, which is the arrival of the full backs from the second plan with overlapping and underlapping, but in addition they added the arrival of 8 in the central areas of the field in the end.However, when they have less time on the ball per won ball, they still know how to play too vertically and do not use the third man enough to play off the opponent’s pressure towards the far side.The phase of the game that they brought to an exceptional level is the attacking throw in, where they developed excellent actions to open up the far side and created a large number of entries into the final third in that way.