The best team in the league?
Are Man City the best team in the Premier League? They certainly play the best football and are the most successful in the modern era. Shall we try them out?
Welcome to another issue of managing from day one. The whole point of this this series is to simply take control of each EPL team and suggest how we would line them up. We will offer some ideas on how to strategize through the club and supporter objectives, who the key players are and which formation we recommend.
Man City are the best team in the league. No exceptions, no nearly or maybe, they are the best team, fact. This is going to be a very subjective guide as with the top teams there are a number of different ways to play them, just because of the players they have available and the skills each one possesses. They won the Champions League last year as testament to how good they are.
In the guide, you will find everything you need to know to get started with Man City, including:
- What objectives do Man City face and why they are important.
- The different types of players and how they work in the squad.
- Tips, tactics, and best practices to succeed with Man City.
Read on and continue the great work that Man City have done so far!
Team Objectives
In order to create a strategy or a vision, we need to work towards objectives. Most objectives from the supporters or board will have an effect on the way we set up our tactics. Hopefully there are only few and that the supporters and board’s goals align.
So straight out of the gate, the supporters want the Premier League. This is no real surprise as this is the best team in the league and you will see why soon. Playing entertaining football and possession football are easy to achieve in this league too.
Developing players using the clubs youth system is a great objective, push the board to invest in the youth facilities and recruit the best coaches with working with youngsters. This is a great objective as you can produce a conveyor belt of talent to push through the first team.
The board want attacking football so that goes in very nicely with the entertaining and possession based football from the board. The board agree to developing players through the club’s youth system. So let’s put together our plan in giving the youngsters a chance. Mentor groups, youth facilities, playing time and great coaches create the start of that environment.
The Man City board want to sign high reputation players. This normally means that they want to sign the best players in the world. As a result they are basically saying sign the most well known players and we will fund you. These players form quite the unique list and are expensive, but well worth it. As a caveat to this, they do not want to sign players over 29.
Man City first 11
Our next step is to assess the first team and create a formation and tactic from it. The way we do this is through the current ability stars, which are great at identifying the key players, but also the weaknesses. It’s as easy as sorting the team by current ability. I use three stars as average, anything below is a weak area and anyone above is a key player.
Looking at the key players, I never seen a list this long. This signifies the ability of this overall, so many great players. The top four players could be the best four players in the league, if not the world. The good news is that most of the players play in different positions, this also helps create a formation and the first team.
Ederson is a superstar in goal, the midfield are really strong, but the main talking point is Haaland. He is probably the best striker in the world, if not Mbappe. Looking at the players we have available, the formations we are looking at are all the four at the back formations, potentially a 433 DM, maybe a 4231.
This is the smallest rest of squad photo I have ever seen. The good news is that we have a couple of options in terms of formation. The midfield is one of the most creative, possession football and attacking football are easy to achieve with a team like this.
Man City Tactics
After taking into account all that was discussed above, I have formulated a narrow 4231 formation. I didn’t want a lopsided team with this one and looked how to fit all this talent in one team. It turns out that both Foden and Grealish can both play AMC naturally. This formation is perfect as a passing strategy and will create alot of opportunities for Haaland.
On the subject of Haaland, he can score in any which way possible, but with this we have moved away from width. This formation is built on feeding through balls to Haalnd to run onto and put away. Rodri will recycle the ball to the midfield to create more, De Bruyne, while he is a magnificent player I have made him play the box to box role.
Looking at the back four and goal keeper, you can see just how talented they are. The only problem I have here is that Ake is more of the centre back in my eyes. We could do with a wingback of sorts to fill in there. Also you can see how long this team has played together by looking at the partnership lines.
Get started with Man City today
There isn’t a lot to be said regarding Man City, they are a great team, whatever you choose to do with your team I’m sure it will be successful. This could be a fun team to play with at first, but I think it will get boring after a couple of years as there is no challenge.
The main strength of this team is the attacking capabilities, the midfield is truly world class and Haaland is probably the best in the world. Set them up correctly and you will see how amazing they are going forward. The weakness of the team is minimal, but some positions could be better or have more depth.
The opportunity with this team is a clean sweep of all trophies. The ability is here to challenge on every front, this maybe more ability than any ever team you manage, so it’s an opportunity for you too. The threat is that if the team do not win anything in the first season the team will become unhappy and be split among the top teams and Man City will have to rebuild.
Give Man City a chance today and start a save game with them. Comment and like if you enjoyed the blog post.
