- May 19, 2015
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I'm curious if anybody has knowledge on how the Man City inverted fullback system works tactically or can point me to an article?
I found this:
But was curious of the forums opinions.
I remember it being a massive talking point when Pep first took over City. I think he had Sagna and Clichy at the tme, but that might be wrong, and he started out the season playing them on their nominally 'wrong' side. Instead of playing high and wide like his fullbacks do now, they tucked into the defensive midfield area in order to offer more options for playing the ball out from the back and through midfield.
I seem to remember people saying that it was something he developed in his own style when he was at Munich, but to be fair he had a couple of brilliant technical FBs in Lahm and Alaba there at the time, and the same thing never really worked at City for him. I seem to remember him abandoning it about halfway through the season for more traditional fullbakcks. Although, in saying traditional, when it comes to Pep I actually mean it. He doesn't seem to use is FBs in anywhere near the same attacking way as we did when we had Rose and Walker or Liverpool did this season with TAA and Robertson. He's far more conservative with them than say Klopp, perhaps because he generally tends to play a very attacking midfield, so it gives the team that extra bit of defensive cover. Whereas a lot of modern teams get their width from their FBs, Pep seems to still use touchline wingers on a reasonably regular basis, think Sane and Sterling, who sometimes will switch over in games, but often do stay wide to stretch the pitch, and open the inside channels for the advanced midfielders. I think that was particularly the case two seasons ago, but in saying that he did tend to play the likes of Mahrez, Sterling and B. SIlva as inverted wingers last season. I guess it just proves that even the very best are always adjusting and tweaking tactically from season to season.
And speaking of inverted wingers, I think that's another attraction of the inverted fullback. With the prevalence of those types of inside forwards who do play on their 'wrong' side, think Salah and Mane, the idea is that playing an inverted FB will allow them to defend on the dominant foot when the winger comes inside to pass or shoot. It worked to good effect for us against Liverpool actually in the 4-1 game, where Aurier played on the left, and although Salah did score, Aurier had a really good game on him for the most part.