Man City 3 vs 1 Liverpool Some Initial observations from me:
- All 4 Full Backs were exceptionally attack minded, with 3 of them being shown as spending virtually all of the game in the opposition halves. Clichy was the exception to this; presumably this was due to his watching of Sterling, and thus being a little more cautious than the others
- Given the defensive lapses Liverpool were prone to last season, is it appropriate to have two full backs that want to get forward so much? Should one of them be more disciplined?
- Liverpool very much on the front foot in the first half, especially down the right with Sterling and Johnson. City were hemmed in for the first 30 minutes
- Liverpool's attacking players are exceptionally mobile. Sturridge, Sterling, Henderson, Countinho and Allen all rotate positions / roles during the first half
- Dzeko continues to work for the team. On this viz he doesn't leave the centre circle for the first 25 minutes; this despite being notionally named as the most advanced forward.
A reminder that these gifs are intended to show general formational tendencies, as opposed to specific player movements at any particular point in time. As the Opta data we use to create these vizs covers On The Ball events, we have no way of knowing where every player is located on the pitch at all times. To keep all the players on the pitch we use a concept of smoothing. New V1.1 Positional Tracker We have the new V1.1 version of our Positional tracker for this game. The main changes from the original version are as follows:
- Inclusion of a Scoreboard
- Removal of Passing Networks
- Player dot sizes vary based on their attacking involvement (passes, shots and take-ons). This allows the viewer to see which players were influencing the game at specific times of the match
Based on the size of the dots we can see that Liverpool had early dominance before City took command towards the end of the first half. It was the same story in the second half with Liverpool having plenty of the ball immediately upon the resumption of the second half, before City again asserted control. (click on the image to open in a larger window) 