First away victory under Xavi vs a tough rival like Villarreal. But as our coach himself said after the game, a draw would have been a more fair result.
Many things could be said about this game. But Xavi's strategy of the day, a man-marking by most of the defenders & midfielders, seems an interesting point to focus on & discuss.
MAN-MARKING VS VILLARREAL
The image below shows the main pattern Villarreal used to attack. Eric Garcia was following Gomez literally everywhere. So Gomez would attract him centrally, creating a space down Barça’s right side that was often exploited by Pedraza (left back) & Danjuma (left forward), which caused lots of problems for Abde & Araujo.
It should be noted that Barça stood in a mid-block in those first 60 minutes & exerted little pressure upfront. My best guess is that this choice was due to the extreme physical effort made in the crucial mid-week game vs Benfica, specially since 10 out of the 11 starters were again on the pitch. Memphis in particular looks really exhausted lately. It’s understandable, he has to do it all : non-stop pressing, the only one making runs in attack, one of the few forwards who's not injured & plays 90 minutes every 3 days (also with his national team).
So the problem IMHO is when you associate man-marking with lack of pressing. The opponent has all the time in the world to disorganize your block & create spaces (by dragging players out of position) and exploit them through passing : Pau Torres or whoever dropped to Villarreal's left side around the halfway line were too often free to play those long balls in the space behind Abde.
Xavi adjusted in the 2nd half, as you can see here (credit : EUMD).
MAN-MARKING IN GENERAL
Man-marking is something Xavi used in his 1st game vs Espanyol. Cruyff too was a fan of it. And Bielsa, who uses radical full-pitch man-marking in every game. You just need to see one of Leeds' games and how their team block is completely unstructured and the players exhausted after 60-70 minutes to realize how risky it is.
IMHO a mix of zonal & man-marking is the way to go. Meaning, Eric García following his man as long as he's in his area of influence but, past a certain limit (if he drifts too centrally for example), one of the midfielders takes charge.
Also, the way the defensive phase ends impacts the way the attacking phase will start. And aggressive man-marking could mean that, once you recover the ball, your right back is positioned as a defensive mid and your center back is positioned as a winger because that’s how far they had to follow their man : is that a correct structure & positioning to start the attacking phase ? I don’t think so… As Guardiola says : attack & defense are not 2 separate phases, they influence each other.
Another comment online attracted my attention. It stated that the man-marking was basically Xavi's way to compensate for the lack of pressing (due to the players' fatigue). I'd argue that man-marking provokes :
- Physical fatigue if your opponent is very mobile & smart enough to make you constantly run (as Villarreal did).
- But also mental fatigue since you're disconnected from the game (your space & the ball) and focusing on a specific rival.
It’s better to defend spaces, not men.
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Great comment..What happened with garcia reminded me with what happened with cannavaro and ramos during the legendary 6-2 false 9 game when messi dragged them out of the defense line and henry exploits the space created..
A word on depay..despite his effort..i dont think he is the rt man for the job and i dont see him as the firmino or jotta of klopp in terms of potential to be smth in a good system and with enough time to adapt and evolve..