Aston Villa 3-2 Manchester City; Villians stage an upset as Pellegrini is left shell shocked

Aston Villa pulled off an impossible feat at home against Manchester City winning 3-2 on an evening which saw them trail the Manchester team twice. They came back to level the score each time, and went on to even add the winner, when Brad Guzan did a Manuel Neuer with his inch perfect goal kick. Manuel Pellegrini will be disappointed with the referee team of Mike Jones and co. who played a crucial role in the match. Though there was a lot of tactical play with interesting shapes, set pieces became the norm of the day as the match was turned on its head with them.

Starting lineups

Aston Villa (3-5-2): Guzan – Clark, Vlaar, Baker – Luna, Bacuna, Delph, El Ahmadi, Sylla – Kozak, Weimann

Manchester City (4-4-2): Hart – Zabaleta, Kompany, Nastasic, Kolarov – Nasri, Yaya Toure, Fernandinho, Milner – Negredo, Dzeko

Formations and matchup

Though both managers opted for different formations than their usual ones, it was one still one sided with City dominating the game from the first minute. Paul Lambert has been using a 3-man defence formation since last season, but today, he didn’t have flying wingers and Christian Benteke. So, he went for the 3-5-2 shape, often played by Juventus. Manuel Pellegrini changed his formation to 4-4-2 from the conventional 4-2-3-1, to accommodate two of his strikers.

For City, James Milner and Samir Nasri were deployed as wingers, with Yaya Toure and Fernandinho positioned in the midfield. The back 4 were unchanged from the previous match. Alvaro Negredo paired up with Edin Dzeko upfront. Aston Villa didn’t have the services of Agbonlahor and Benteke, so Lambert tweaked his usual 3-4-3 to slot in another midfielder and make it a 3-5-2-ish shape. Clark, Vlaar and Baker teamed up in the 3 man defense with Antonio Luna and Bacuna playing as wingbacks. Sylla was preferred in the midfield over Westwood, along with Delph and El Ahmadi. Weimann and Kozak played as the striker duo.

It was all congested in the middle of the pitch, with Villa’s three players and City’s two midfielders. For City, it was 2 vs 2 at the back, as Weimann and Kozak were up against Nastasic and Kompany. But, the city centre back duo was surprisingly comfortable dealing with the Villa forwards. This was mainly due to the drifting of Weimann into deep positions, leaving Kozak alone in attack. On the other side, it was a 3 vs 2 situation for the Villa backline, so they had a spare man to tackle the threat of Dzeko and Negredo. In the midfield, it was a 3 vs 2 again, in favor of Villa, with Toure and Fernandinho getting outnumbered, at least on paper.

Aston Villa v Manchester City – Formations

With Villa having numbers advantage in the center of the pitch from defence to attack, it was the wings where they were going to take a beating. Man City had four players up against the two wingbacks Luna and Bacuna, and this was where Pellegrini’s men had the upper hand. But, this was only on paper. In reality, Samir Nasri became the story of the first half, repeating his influential performance from Old Trafford last week. While he was deployed as a winger, he didn’t actually play there. He positioned himself in a much narrower attacking role, closing down the Villa backline. The move from Nasri made it a 3 vs 3 situation for the home defence, and forced Fabian Delph to drop deep to make up the numbers.

On the other flank, Luna was taking on Zabaleta and Milner at once. Sylla came to help out his wingback by drifting onto the wing and marking Zabaleta, and easing the pressure on Luna. All this movement meant El Ahmadi was alone in the middle with Fernandinho and Toure running directly at him. Andreas Weimann’s frequent runs into deep positions sort of made up the numbers in midfield, but Yaya Toure was happy to take on any number of players by himself.

The major source of attack for Man City in the first half was from the left flank, where Kolarov was getting loads of space to run into, as he beat Bacuna time and again to launch dangerous crosses into the box. The link up play between, Toure, Nasri, Negredo released Kolarov into space on the flanks, and the Serbian was having a field day with his crossing.

The goals

Yaya Toure’s unmarked goal right on the stroke of half time, gave the advantage for Pellegrini for his half time pep talk. He made no changes and City were instructed to play on the same tune as the first half. Paul Lambert though worked his motivating skills to full effect during his half time speech. Aston Villa looked a different side after the break. They were playing with renewed energy and pressing City players all over the pitch.

Villa could get into the dominating position with their pressing only after the first 5 minutes of the second half. The period from the 50 to 55 minute mark saw Aston Villa peg Man City into their own half, and thanks to a wrong call from the linesman, El Ahmadi who was offside, fired in a shot into the bottom corner, beating Joe Hart.