The last fig leaf was torn off, Guardiola and Manchester City escort Crystal Palace to realize their dream FA Cup

In fact, Manchester City's year has been a failure regardless of whether they can win the FA Cup.

The last round is coming, and Guardiola's Manchester City not only missed the league championship that he is best at, but has not even secured a seat in the Champions League. Both the League Cup and the Champions League have been eliminated, and only the FA Cup can barely comfort the team.

So for Manchester City, it is not uncommon for FA Cup championship, and the UEFA Cup spots attached to it are also something Manchester City does not want. In this way, the symbolic significance of this final is far greater than the actual significance. Manchester City just needs to use such a championship to prove that everything that happened this season can be attributed to an accident.

However, Glasner's Crystal Palace disrupted Guardiola and Manchester City's plans.

Maybe because the opponent in the final is only Crystal Palace, Manchester City's mistake in this game has been revealed since the starting stage.

In this game, Manchester City did not use the previously effective combination of Covacizi + Bernardo Silva, but used the combination of Bernardo Silva and De Bruyne in the midfield area, supplemented by O'Reilly who took the left back position and three central defenders on the back line, forming a 3-3 position:

So in the frontcourt, Manchester City played a combination of Doku, Haaland, Marmush and Savignho.

In terms of offensive power, this game can be said to be full, with the double winger and the double striker playing together, which is equivalent to cutting off a midfield position when Haaland was away.

This point, when we drew with Southampton, Haaland returned from injury and would surely regain the starting position quickly. Guardiola also knew that the combination of Haaland and De Bruyne was no longer as brave as he was, and Malmush must be implicated. Then when the double-wingers also had to play, they would naturally have to cut the midfield.

It can be said that the Crystal Palace saw the passage to victory from here.

In this game, Glasner did not make much changes in the three-guard formation style. The only clear change was that Kamada Dadi entered the starting lineup, occupied a midfield position, and appeared in front of the back line with Walton.

In normal times, this move is actually quite dangerous. This season, Crystal Palace once fell to the last place in the standings, which is largely related to Kamada's position and responsibilities being difficult to control, but in this game, this is tolerant, because in the FA Cup final, Crystal Palace decisively chose the basic strategy of defensive counterattack: After the opening of the game, Crystal Palace gave up the ball and compressed the space, which made Kamada's physical problems resolved by strategy. Guardiola may have expected Glasner to choose such a way of play, so he boldly cut off a midfield.

At the beginning, both sides tried carefully. Manchester City actually found a weak link in Crystal Palace very early, that is, the wingers counterattack in the offense and defense covering the double midfield's side space, and Manchester City could make a 45-degree cross here early:

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, and at the beginning, because Manchester City started outputting pressure early, Manchester City also gained more Opportunities for corner kicks:

From the situation at that time, Manchester City had occupied the situation on the court because their wingers had a certain deterrent effect in one-on-one, and could stretch the formation, and the ribs would have a gap in the ball:

However, a clear problem here is that the offense is too far away from the goal.

Whether it is the winger's breakthrough or the second-tier teammates trying to cross from the outside, they cannot form a direct threat to the goal. Crystal Palace's three central defenders do not feel too much moving pressure in the defense. In most cases, they only need to stand in their position, follow Haaland and Marmush, and destroy in the final point-grabbing link.

Especially in tactical aspects, Glasner has a targeted arrangement today. In the double midfield, after one player is normalized, it further helps the three central defenders defend the opponent's forwards and potential rib penetration:

So, Manchester City began to face a bigger problem. Although they had double strikers, the team went from Haaland alone to Haaland and Marmush in jail.

There are 10 people in the field, and only 8 people touch the ball at high frequency, but the points of the ball touch are very fixed, lacking running and interspers, not to mention the confrontation that Guardiola doesn't like, so there is very little involvement in Crystal Palace's defense line, which makes Manchester City seem to have a lot of ball rights and the touch position seems to be very high, but it is actually difficult to form pressure on Henderson.

Moreover, this has caused problems in Manchester City's defense.

Among the 10 players in the field, 2 were in jail and 2 were pulled aside sharply. Left-back O'Reilly retracted into the ribs to support the midfield. The 3-3 position made a natural gap behind the two Manchester City wingers.

Here, we can only count on the players' physical abilities to cover, but unfortunately, Crystal Palace is a team that focuses on three defenders, and there are natural round trips for wingbacks here.

So in the 16th minute of the game, Matteta formed a fulcrum, and Kamada Dadi captured the problem of Manchester City's lack of one person in the midfield. Then the right-wing defender Muñoz moved forward at high speed, and no one could restrict it along the way. This allowed him to pass it calmly and find Eze who was surrounding the weak side:

Crystal Palace's first counterattack, and scored a goal..

So from the data point of view, you can say that Manchester City's first release is no problem. The high ball rights prove that it will not have too many defenses, but once, it can't be confronted with the opponent's big center, he has no midfielder, and the wing space is captured by the opponent's wingback, and all three problems are tied together.

From this time on, Manchester City's challenge has really emerged.

The offense is not smooth, and the players can feel it themselves, so Marmush decided to escape from prison first, no longer wait in the middle of the frontcourt, but began to intersperse diagonally, but other teammates would not take this opportunity to speed up the pace. If they hit a wall, they would deal with the ball to safer teammates in the idea of ​​controlling the ball:

This is clearly visible when Haaland also decided to escape from prison later:

Guardiola's team still naturally resists uncontrollable scenes and does not like to capture the opponent's panic in chaos.

Therefore, the cooperation between Haaland and Marmush is not smooth:

This is normal. The latter came just in the winter window. When they were partnering together, Haaland was injured and Guardiola were not good at double strikers, and very few. In addition, the three central defenders in Crystal Palace have an even physical fitness, so there will be no obvious chance of playing small or small. It is normal to have no tacit understanding.

But Manchester City will not choose to strengthen pressing when the two strikers cooperate, so as to capture the flaws of Crystal Palace's handling of balls in a narrow area. Instead, they will choose to let these two people cooperate as little as possible, which is still a disadvantage in their thinking.

So in this period of Manchester City's offense, he wanted to make a strong effort, but while he was thinking about closing his strength, Crystal Palace repeatedly counterattacked, and was still hitting Manchester City's small midfielders and few wingers:

It was not until the 33rd minute that Bernardo Silva created a penalty for Crystal Palace in the attack from the back, but Manchester City did not make a penalty:

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, including Manchester City's rare mid-long pass attack, which actually hit Dean Henderson's foul:

These are opportunities for Manchester City to make a comeback, but for various reasons, there was no change in the situation. Of course, the team could be wronged, but in 33 minutes, there were only two attacks on the opponent's cramps, which was still Manchester City's tactical failure.

The penalty kick was not scored, which made Manchester City need to start again, and they threatened again, which was already the Duoku at the end of the first half that he had shown his personal abilities:

So, the problem had already appeared as early as the first half, but how could Guardiola easily make tactical changes?

Guazhi coaches value training performance and the tacit understanding and fluency shown in training, but no matter how the difficulty is set, the training intensity is difficult to match with the intensity of the game, especially in a final of a certain victory or defeat and a championship and an Asian Championship.

So when we came back in the second half, Manchester City changed slightly, for example, the number of passes on the right increased greatly:

Manchester City's first substitution did not appear until 76 minutes, and objectively speaking, Echeviri's appearance did have an effect, which significantly increased Manchester City's running and interlude in the frontcourt, and its short and flexible characteristics also made Manchester City's rib attack clearer:

, but it is still a bit whimsical, and some look down on the players of Glasner and Crystal Palace.

They climbed out of the last place in the standings and entered the middle of the standings. Now they are fighting with Manchester City in the FA Cup final. There is only time to try to stop them from winning the cup, and their abilities cannot be so underestimated.

So, as time runs out, Crystal Palace successfully realizes its dream.

This team has always been strong, whether under Hodgson, Vieira or Glasner. The basic physical base of black players is supplemented by special technical points in the third-line position. As long as the skills and tactics are reasonable and the offense and defense are balanced, they can achieve excellent combat effectiveness.

Not to mention others, Manchester City has suffered more than this time today.

In this season, Glasner ran away from Olisse and introduced Kamada. There were some twists and turns in this series of changes. He knew that the team needed to make up for the technical links, but fortunately, the management trusted the team and did not dismiss it. Sal came on the stage, the forward quality was complete, and the wingguards could take care of the defense first, which gave Crystal Palace a starting point for defensive counterattacks. The improvement of combat effectiveness and performance was a natural thing.

In the final, Kamada Dadi's flexibility and technical capabilities were used in a small space, and basic strategies were used to avoid his physical weaknesses, demonstrating Glasner's precise control.

And compared with Glasner, Guardiola seems quite rigid.

If you want to set up a double striker and a double winger at the beginning, it is a bit rash to cut off the midfield, but with the support of high ball rights, it is still barely reasonable.. On the

line, there are only wingers breaking through and 45-degree crossing; in the countermeasures, there is no idea that the two forwards come out to catch up or pull the edge, which involves the opponent's central defender. Instead, they simply emphasize the intrusion of O'Reilly, Bernardo Silva and others. So what is the essential difference between this and Maresca's request for Cucurella and Rees James to step in and attack hard?

The genre masters have fallen to the same level as their disciples, so it is not surprising that everyone competes for the fourth place together.

Now, the last fig leaf has been torn off, and the rigid performance of the whole game has become the background board for Crystal Palace to realize its dream, and Manchester City will only become even more failure this season.

What kind of results should they achieve next season so that everyone can forget the performance of this season like a stain?