Was wondering how they do it so well and sure it’s been that way since Sheikh Mansour bought the club. At other big clubs there’s a first XI that’s going to play most weeks with some squad players on the fringes when fit whereas at City I’ve noticed that they could probably field 2 good starting XIs from one week to the next and wouldn’t struggle. Like sometimes you’ll see Stones and Ake in defence then another game it’s Dias and Gvardiol, sometimes Akanji plays there. Been like that for quite a while remembering when it was 4-4-2 under Mancini and Pellegrini having Aguero and Tevez up front with Dzeko and Balotelli before Negredo and Jovetic as back up. Whenever someone gets injured it’s barely even a problem and they seem to know how to manage big players really well, bit jealous as a United fan as whenever one player is dropped, it’s such a big deal.
Noticed that the formation also changes as well quite often, for example
3-2-4-1 vs Chelsea
3-4-2-1 vs Bournemouth
4-2-3-1 vs United
It’s a system thing for Pep.
He has players in positions who excel as ‘X’ and ‘Y’ and he has cover for those qualities. A lot of their team has a ‘simple job’ they need to do to make it work and he ensures that there’s always two of those players available.
The problem with such a system is that you always need 2/3 players who can do X, Y and Z. So when they’re missing Rodri, you reaaaally see it. De Bruyne, you see it. Walker, you see it.
TLDR: Having a few players who can do X, Y and Z in Pep’s system makes it so the rest of the team only have to do X. We all know, when you have one job it’s much easy than having three. But, you see the absence of the XYZ’s considerably more when they’re not there (My TLDR isn’t much shorter than my actual post, this is making it worse).