Premier League DARTS, Week 1: Man City's shapeshifting, Chelsea's Sarrification
Welcome to Premier League DARTS, Yahoo Sports‘ weekly column that runs every Monday morning during the EPL season. Why “DARTS”? Because Henry Bushnell recaps the weekend’s biggest games with Discussion, Analysis, Reactions, Takeaways and Superlatives. All of that is below. But first, a brief intro …
We’re back! Far too soon, mind you. But, after a virtually non-existent offseason of Bastille storming and Mourinho moaning, the nonsensical nine months of soccer we call the Premier League returned this past weekend. And therefore so does this column.
To the DARTS frequenters, welcome home. To the uninitiated … grab a seat and make yourselves comfortable. It is time for an abbreviated manifesto. Because it’s Week 1. It is an hour of great peril. And we are here to shelter you.
Across England, and indeed around the glob, it is Manic Overreaction Monday, a day filled with the exact type of discourse we try to avoid. Every Monday, in this corner of the interwebs, there are takes, but not flaming hot ones. There are reactions, but without that four-letter prefix. The goal is rationality and insight, never absent context.
And the context for the 900 minutes of Premier League football that rung in the 2018-19 season this past weekend is that they were 900 of 34,200. It’s that new signings weren’t integrated; World Cup semifinalists weren’t quite fit. It’s that the league will look plenty different on May 13 than it does on Aug. 13.
Of course, Manchester United and Chelsea supporters have every right to proclaim themselves title contenders; every right to dream of glory. Irrational optimism, just like inconsolable pessimism, is one of fandom’s irrevocable liberties, and none of what you’re about to read is an attempt to revoke it.
But Week 1 is not for overhauling expectations or altering predictions. It’s not for trophy talk or relegation worry. It’s for identifying the early stages of trends – the tactics, tendencies, and general awesomeness that the Premier League invariably provides, and that this column will cover as long as you keep reading it.
1. Manchester City’s shapeshifting
Manchester City is the best team in the Premier League for many reasons. Two are its tactical flexibility and nuance, qualities that are very much intertwined. The Citizens bludgeoned and flummoxed Arsenal with a chameleonic shape that has become a Pep Guardiola staple.
Without the ball, they retreated into a standard 4-4-2. With it, they morphed into a formation that numbers can’t do justice. Here’s how the shifts looked on a tactics board:
And from an Emirates TV camera’s perch:
The variations came from the left. In a more traditional setup, left back Benjamin Mendy would stay wide while Raheem Sterling sought out interior space. In Pep’s inversion, Sterling hugs the touchline (off the screen in the final image above) while Mendy tucks inside to become a fourth central midfielder.
“I’ve gotta work off him,” Sterling told NBC Sports Network’s broadcast after the match. “We can’t be on the same line. I’ll stay wide if he’s inside … because [otherwise] there’s no angle.”
More often than not, they got their angles right. Arsenal’s midfielders, accustomed to standard structures, had difficulty accounting for the extra man, and City was able to play out of pressure through Mendy:
Neither of the goals would have been possible without his inversions. He won a second ball in a central position five seconds before the first. He burst through the left half-space to create the second. One game into his second attempt at a first full season under Guardiola, Mendy already looks like a monster.
2. Second-season Pep breakouts
And the craziest part of Mendy’s success? No manager in his or her right mind would give the Frenchman central midfield tasks. Then again, no manager is as good a teacher as Guardiola.
Mendy’s skill set is as archetypal as a fullback’s can be, but Pep has already molded him into an inverting overlord. As various in-game episodes of frantic gesticulating would suggest, he’s still a work in progress. “Sometimes we want to kill him,” Guardiola joked after the game. And yet his impact on Sunday’s game was already so vast.
Several City players – Sterling being the preeminent example – took massive strides last year in their second seasons under Guardiola. Mendy, Aymeric Laporte and Bernardo Silva could be the next wave. They’d give City 18 players, at least, who could start 30-plus games on a title winning team. They could erase any depth concerns, and, believe it or not, make the champions even scarier this year.
3. The importance of Romelu Lukaku
Manchester United’s prolonged spells of frustration in the first half of Friday’s underwhelming win over Leicester largely stemmed from its inability to jumpstart counterattacks. The Red Devils got stuck in their own half because they had no outlet. In other words, they got stuck in their own half because they had no Romelu Lukaku.
Marcus Rashford is a tremendous talent. He is not a lone striker:
When United aimed for the Rashford, more often than not, the ball came right back down its throat. Leicester’s center backs simply played behind the 20-year-old to discourage balls over the top, and stepped aggressively when they came into Rashford’s feet.
As Jose Mourinho said following another match sans Lukaku last season: “For 10 months, I get asked ‘why always Lukaku? Why always Lukaku?’ … You know why now.”
4. The Summer of Pogba
It is still summer, and therefore still, unequivocally, the Summer of Paul Pogba. Less than a month ago, he was dabbing with Emmanuel Macron, the president of France – and with the World Cup trophy in hand. Now he’s captaining United and scoring penalties with two stars – presumably for France’s two World Cup triumphs – dyed into the back of his hair:
What a boss.
5. N’Golo Kante’s new role
It’d be prudent to reserve judgement on Chelsea for at least another week. A win over Huddersfield doesn’t exactly slot in near the top of a team’s résumé. But we can begin to grasp new manager Maurizio Sarri’s system. And one of the clear developments concerned all-universe midfielder N’Golo Kante.
Under Antonio Conte, and under Claudio Ranieri at Leicester before that, Kante was an unrestrained havoc-wreaker. On Saturday, his role was more defined and confined. He played on the right of a midfield three, flanking Sarri’s single pivot, Jorginho. Heat maps – first (orange) from last May’s matchup with Huddersfield, second (blue) from this one – tell the story:
Sarri’s system gives Kante more attacking responsibility. He was tasked with running beyond right winger Pedro, and even beyond Morata. The fullback-winger-midfielder triangles and interactions often drive early phases of possession. The most common attacking pattern was a Pedro check to the ball and a Kante forward dart:
It’ll be fascinating to see how Kante’s duties evolve.
6. Chelsea’s line-breaking center backs
One of the more surprising names on a Big Six teamsheet over the weekend was David Luiz. Yeah, the one with defensive habits as crazy as his hair. But, of course, there’s a method to the apparent madness. Luiz, whatever you think of his positional capabilities, is still a graceful and incisive passer. SarriBall requires precisely that, especially against a low block. And, well … voila:
Put Eden Hazard on the end of that second line-breaker and it’s a goalscoring opportunity.
Now, both Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen possess similar capabilities. But Luiz is the best packer of the bunch. Might Sarri put his faith in the volatile Brazilian, even against more potent attacking sides?
7. Chelsea’s kickoff double-screen
Part of the Sarrification of Chelsea, apparently, is turning Kante and Jorginho into American football offensive tackles – or basketball power forwards – right at kickoff:
Kante whiffed, but the play wasn’t going to his side anyway.
8. Hugo the cat
The coolest thing you might not have noticed this weekend was a Hugo Lloris ploy in Tottenham’s victory that made Newcastle winger Kenedy look foolish. But it was less about the Brazilian, almost all about the French goalkeeper.
Kenedy was free, in on goal. The vast majority of keepers, in this situation, would chop their feet, progressively closing down the angle. Lloris, instead, stayed more or less on his line:
What Lloris did instead was incredible. He lay in wait. He baited Kenedy into a normal touch, tempting him with all that space.
And then right before the ball hit the winger’s left foot, he pounced. He exploded off his line and quashed the chance:
That is a low-key stunning display of athleticism.
9. Kit takes
Speaking of Spurs … It is apparently fashionable in British football spheres, especially among cynical journalists, to complain about kits that stray from monotonous patterns and traditional club colors. Tottenham’s third kit drew more ire than most:
Remember when we promised DARTS would be devoid of flaming hot takes? Well, yeah, that was a lie. Because here’s one: Those Spurs strips, with a map of north London across the chest, are, as the kids say, fire.
10. Do Wolves wear orange or gold?
This, apparently, is a divisive issue. Because Wolves purport to wear gold and black – colors taken from the town’s coat of arms.
But, uh … everything in these pictures, except maybe the socks, is orange:
Somebody, please, tell me I’m not delusional. Or get in touch with any other comments or questions between now and next Monday.
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Henry Bushnell covers global soccer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Question? Comment? Email him at henrydbushnell@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @HenryBushnell, and on Facebook.
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