Match Review: Manchester City - Chelsea

Back to match reviews, here's the first big game of the season! But, first of all I would like to thank for the feedback, on my last post. My focus will remain on football analysis but, from time to time, I’ll mix in some trading topics.

Pre-Game Questions 

No surprises in the starting lineups, but I was looking forward to see how Mangala would fare against a top side and whether he can be the answer for Man City’s defensive woes from last season. Furthermore, I was expecting Man City to dominate the possession game with Chelsea happy to sit deep soaking the pressure, like usually happens when Pellegrini and Mourinho sides meet. I looked at the markets before the match and I thought Man City at 2.00 was a bit on the low side. The match proved me wrong, not because of the final result, but by the way it was played. On to that…

First Half – Chelsea’s plan goes wrong but Begovic keeps them in the game! 

The match starts and, in a matter of seconds, Aguero is face to face with Begovic! The deadlock was not broken but it represents well Chelsea’s game plan failure. It’s usual for Chelsea to give the possession away in big matches and wait for the right moments to launch deadly fast transitions. What is not usual for them, and never happened last season, is the opposition being able to create five or six clear cut chances in 45 minutes. If you give Aguero five of these, you can consider yourself lucky if you only concede one goal, although truth be told: Begovic was amazing!

Back to the game, Manchester City was incredibly dominant in the first half, especially in the first 20 minutes, where they could’ve finished it. When Chelsea was improving a little bit, Aguero proved with an amazing goal why he's the best striker in the Premier League. Chelsea didn’t look good at all in this half and even their medical staff looked worse than usual!

Second Half – Two Belgians with a different fate: Hazard forgives while Kompany kills! 

Chelsea could only improve in the second half and indeed they did, controlling possession a bit more although City always looked the better team. Perhaps, the key moment was Hazard’s missed chance on minute 70 which, by the way, was their best moment in the whole match. When Mourinho decided to risk everything, Kompany sealed the game with another goal from a corner kick, beating Ivanovic in the air, who is also to blame for City’s third goal.

I wrote earlier about Chelsea and Man City in my PL review, and the beginning of the season is highlighting Chelsea’s fragilities and Man City’s qualities. For the lazy ones like me, I’ll repeat it briefly: Eden Hazard is receiving the ball too early in regions where he can’t be decisive while Azpilicueta and Ivanovic don’t pose an offensive threat, leaving Chelsea with limp wings. Furthermore, and this is a new problem, Ivanovic is being exposed defensively which was pretty rare last season and throughout his Chelsea career.

On the other hand, Man City is looking very good, with their possession game at its best and although it’s too early to have a final opinion, Mangala’s inclusion is helping City’s defensive problems. Today, he was really great, very composed and concentrated, and a monster in the air!

Trading: Pre-game analysis vs in-play analysis 

First of all, this topic deserves an entire post, but as a short preview let me tell you that although it is useful to anticipate scenarios before the game, you should not be a hostage of your pre-game opinions. Practical example: I thought 2.00 was a low price for Man City pre-game. The match showed I was wrong, so does it mean that I would lose money if I was trading? Not at all, I could win or lose irrespective of my pre-game opinion as in-play trading starts when the match starts. One of the most common trading mistakes is what I like to call “to fall in love with your opinion”, where one takes positions based on its pre-game opinion, ignoring what is happening on the pitch. Bottom-line being: you don’t have to guess the match outcome to be successful as a trader, it’s all about using the markets to make a profit. The need to be right is an ego issue which doesn’t help at all when it comes to trading.

Match Review: WBA – Manchester City

Pre-Game Questions

Raheem Sterling official debut was the biggest point of interest after his £49M transfer from Liverpool. I think he has a lot of potential and can really become the best English player, but I can’t avoid thinking he was a bit overpriced. Also, Man City's possession style presents some challenges he rarely faced as a Liverpool player.

After the starting lineups were announced, the inclusion of Wilfred Bony ahead of Sergio Aguero was a surprise, although there's not much to say about it. Aguero is probably the best striker in the Premier League and most certainly this decision had to do with his involvement in Copa America. The final talking point before the game was Pellegrini’s decision to start the season with Mangala as central defender. I must say I know Mangala pretty well and he is one of the best central defenders in the world in terms of aerial and physical ability.

But, these qualities are most often than not, over-shadowed by his fragilities: concentration and technical ability. The latter can be identified when he is pressed or has to conduct the ball. On the other hand, his concentration issues represent a major handicap as he quite often gives away silly free-kicks (too agressive!) and the occasional blunder.

First half – Two different styles collide in Silva’s playground

Trading-wise, this was the perfect example of how preparation can be useful, as this match was as predictable as it gets. Like I stated, in a more detailed way, in my Premier League review, Man City is the more dominant team in the country, playing a possession-based style with a lot of ball movement. WBA in turn, is probably one of the most direct Premier League teams, especially against strong opposition. Tony Pulis doesn't rate passing number stats as WBA game plan, once they recover possession, is based on reaching the opposition are as fast as they can. Based on this premises, the first half was played in WBA's half and Man City dominated completely. With Silva giving positioning, timing and technical abillity masterclasses, Man City reached the break leading by two goals. I have to say Silva is a joy to watch, he'll probably never play for them but for me he's a perfect example of Barcelona's DNA! 

Mixing a bit of trading in this analysis, there was not a single football reason to back WBA in this half as this match was perfectly one-sided, which is not common in the Premier League. Of course, there could be market reasons to back WBA, for instance if the price for their win was 100 with 0-0, I'd be all over it. You don’t have a choice sometimes, if someone offers you a new and functional vacuum cleaner for 1EUR, you have to buy it even if you don’t need it! Of course, it can help in your domestic duties but even if you already have one, you can always sell it on eBay for 20/25 EUR!

Second Half – No drama this time, as Kompany finishes it!

The game changed slightly in the opening minutes as WBA was able to press and force Man City to commit some minor mistakes like giving away some free-kicks. This is classic Man City and although the game was completely controlled by them, if they had conceded in this period, I could be writing a different review by now. But, nothing happened and in 58th minute Kompany sealed the win with a header from a corner kick.

Man City signings

Sterling is still adapting to the new reality as he now plays for a team who is constantly on the opposition half. This means he'll have to learn how to play with less space available. Nonetheless, after the first goal, Man City was able to do some quick transitions and it was obvious that Sterling was more adapted to this kind of play. Bottom-line being, the great players always find a way and if Sterling is the real deal he’ll find it sooner or later. 

Oh no…it's another Premier League preview! Title contenders (Part 1 of 2)

Premier League previews are springing everywhere, so I'll give it a try building on my last post about managers! This preview will be reviewed in the beginning of September, after the transfer deadline, as I still expect some game-changing market moves.

Chelsea – Champions with limp wings!

Watch several Chelsea matches and focus your attention on Eden Hazard, he is the best Premier League player so it should not be that bad! Key questions: where is he receiving the ball? How many opposing players does he have to face before entering a danger zone? Do the same exercise with Lionel Messi under Luis Enrique tenure! The point here is that Chelsea attacking system is so stiff and risk averse that the weight of creation is on Hazard shoulders since the first phase of construction. 

In a sense, Eden Hazard has to be Chelsea's Schrödinger Cat, especially while Diego Costa is spending time with Eva Carneiro in the medical department. The limp wings issue doesn't help the cause as Azpilicueta plays on the left while being right-footed and Ivanovic is a defensive minded right back (the best in the world if football was just defending). Enough of all this negativity, they are the champions and the favourites for the Premier League title, but why? Because they are by far the most solid Premier League side from a defensive and mental perspective! Jose Mourinho is a genius war strategist and he knows that this defensive stability differentiates them from the other rivals! Is it pretty? No, and it's also very risky, especially if they can't revive Falcão, as they will be completely dependent on two players: Hazard and Diego Costa.

Nonetheless, I believe they will buy an offensive minded left-back to improve the team offensive dynamic. Also, in the beginning of last season Chelsea proved to be capable of playing free-flowing attacking football (with Fabregas exceling!) so a lot can change during the season. All being said, I think they are fairly classified as top dog!

Man City – Do we really need to defend?

First of all, I admire Manuel Pellegrini! His football conception really makes the most technically gifted players shine: Riquelme (Villarreal), Isco (Malaga) and now Silva are good examples. They play a suffocating possession-style football and it’s not unusual to see them exchanging passes in the final-third of the pitch with the opposition defense inside their own goal area. 

The Citizens are the most dominant team in the Premier League and when things go their way they can really thrash the opposition. During the season, you´ll get some 5-0, 6-1 results for them which you won't get from Chelsea. Attacking-wise, they know it all as they can also hurt the opposition with fast transitions. That said, Pellegrini has a total disregard for the defensive organization of the team. The transfer window it´s still open, but the fact they bought Sterling and are associated with De Bruyne, when Martin Demichelis is a potential starter baffles me. I'm maybe being too harsh as Pellegrini defensive paradigm makes defenders look bad, but still, Demichelis is not a top player anymore. 

One can say that Pellegrini goes by the saying, “if you have the ball, you can´t concede” and truth be told, they can impose their possession game in the vast majority of Premier League matches but, when they play top European teams, in Champions League, their fragilities are exposed big time. I love trading those games, is a shame they only come 3 or 4 times per year! Still, if Bony can help Aguero transform their possession in more goals (which was a problem last year!) as a solution to compensate their defensive woes, they can be a very dangerous contender to dethrone Chelsea.