- Alex Keble (@alexkeble) is a football journalist who specialises in tactical understanding, analysis and predictions of all aspects of the game.
Full press vs counter attack
- Tottenham vs Aston Villa
- Sky Sports: Sunday, 14:00
- Home 13/10 | Draw 13/5 | Away 15/8
Yves Bissouma’s fifth yellow card at Wolves means he is suspended along with Cristian Romero, while Micky van de Ven, James Maddison, and Destiny Udogie remain injured. Tottenham’s team is considerably depleted and, on a two-match losing streak, they are there for the taking.
Aston Villa will no doubt sit back a little, allow Spurs to sweep into high attacking positions, and – by setting traps - win the ball back to counter-attack at breakneck speed through Moussa Diaby and Ollie Watkins.
This is already the club’s favourite way to play, but playing such an expansive team – and with Unai Emery always looking to use opposition strengths against them – it is virtually guaranteed to be the tactical pattern.
But the important match-up is between Spurs’ inverting full-backs and the wider midfielders in Villa’s 4-2-2-2. Chelsea, prior to the red cards, were torn apart in the first half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium earlier this month because Mauricio Pochettino had no plan for Ange Postecoglou’s full-backs and the wild 2-3-5 it creates.
Raheem Sterling and Cole Palmer were caught in no-mans-land, allowing the full-backs Udogie and Pedro Porro to make underlapping runs without being tracked, hence Spurs passing easily through the middle of the park. Emery will have studied that closely to ensure it does not happen to Villa.
The most obvious way to deny Tottenham is to instruct John McGinn and Youri Tielemans, the two wide midfielders in Villa’s narrow 4-2-2-2, to man-mark the full-backs as they dip inside. If the Villa pair can do this successfully, then Spurs should be stumped: Watkins and Diaby will block passing lanes into the number six; Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara can track the Spurs eights; Villa’s full-backs can keep an eye on the wingers; and the two centre-backs can watch Heung-Min Son.
It certainly helps Villa’s cause that half the Tottenham first team will be out. Postecoglou’s adventurous football requires slick interplay of the sort unfamiliar partnerships struggle to find; Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Pape Sarr, and Rorigo Bentancur will inevitably move slower, allowing Villa to pinch possession and rush into the final third.
A crucial midfield battle
- Manchester City vs Liverpool
- Sky Sports: Saturday, 12:30
- Home 7/10 | Draw 16/5 | Away 10/3
The rivalry between Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp is so long, complicated, and intense each fresh encounter brings a new tactical tweak from at least one of them. The last thing this fixture needed, then, was a string of injuries to further destabilise the plans of the two managers.
Last year there was Man City’s awkward 3-5-2 in the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield, followed by a wild – and disastrous - 4-2-4 from Liverpool that allowed Man City to walk through central midfield in a 4-1 thrashing at the Etihad.
This season, we must focus on injuries to Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes, John Stones, and Kevin De Bruyne, which threatens Rodri with a partner too weaker – or young – to cope in the most important area of the field.
In the 4-4 draw with Chelsea in Man City’s last match it was Rodri’s isolation at the base of midfield (Manuel Akanji struggled to fill the space like Stones) that allowed Chelsea’s inside forwards to dominate in the transition, and there is every chance Dominic Szobozslai and Curtis Jones will be able to do something similar.
Guardiola’s likely solution is to pick Bernardo Silva at the base alongside Rodri, as he did in the 1-0 defeat at Anfield last season, but it isn’t a strategy that often yields results for City. A rupture in the middle of the park is just what Liverpool need to get a foothold and - breaking quickly with Trent Alexander-Arnold inverting to add another body centrally - turn this into the basketball game they want.
Erling Haaland is carrying an injury and might not be available, which could be a blessing in disguise for Guardiola. Julian Alvarez was superb dropping off the front in the 4-1 in last season, giving Man City the link player they needed to take advantage of Liverpool’s problems in the number six position. It’s a problem that persists: Liverpool are yet to find a way to replace Fabinho, leaving them just as exposed as City through the middle.
If, as seems likely, we get an end-to-end game, Man City will be hopeful of the role Jeremy Doku can play up against Trent Alexander-Arnold. Doku’s dribbling has been incredible from the left, and surely he will be given a start on Saturday to run straight at the Liverpool right-back or use his pace to drive into the spaces Alexander-Arnold leaves behind him.
Klopp might even choose to start Joe Gomez on the right to sure this side up, and the Liverpool manager has an equally big selection headache up front, where Darwin Nunez’s manic energy could exploit space behind Man City’s high line – but whose inability to drop like Alvarez might stretch Liverpool’s formation lines too much.
There are far too many ifs and buts – too many tactical possibilities – to predict which match-ups will be decisive. But whatever happens, it will be one of the games of the season.
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