In the center of the defense, Pep brought John Stones and Aymeric Laporte, the excellent central midfielders. In particular, the deal with Laporte really worth “money for rice bowl”. Pep confirmed the French center-back deserves a price of 57 million pounds.

Most teams attack or counterattack based on the speed of the wingers. In Man City, Laporte plays an important role in speeding the ball forward. The reason given by Pep is that Laporte is left-footed. He always observes and pays attention to every detail to build the football of his will effectively.

“It is important that Laporte is left-footed. When he receives the ball from the right wing, he immediately turns and turns to the left, giving the ball to Leroy Sane. In this position, Laporte will deploy the ball faster than the right footed player.

If the ball goes into the middle, he can coordinate with Riyad Mahrez. Laporte helps Man City have 2 faster deployment plans. The important thing is that City must have left-back center-left, “Pep said in October 2018.

Dark art

In addition, Pep also calculated the error. A central midfielder who receives a yellow card is safer than the defensive players. When facing Man City, you will face foul situations from the middle of the field that experts call tactical foul.

According to Opta, Man City stand 2 and 3 in the percentage of tactical errors in the 2 seasons of 2019/20, 2017/18. Currently, the team leading this stat is Arsenal, the team that just appointed Arteta as the head coach in December 2019.

Gary Neville, a former Man United player, once criticized Pep for applying tactical fouls, but Pep has his own reasons. When the team has more control and attacks, they face the risk of more counterattack. And making tactical mistakes is part of helping them win from stopping goals.

Unlike Neville, the Telegraph appreciated the tactical error from Man City when Fernandinho gave the beautiful phrase: “The pinnacle of dark art”. The Brazilian midfielder plays an extremely important role in the squad that Pep built. He is the person with the most tactical fouls in the City team.