As City continue to hunt down Arsenal, Thursday night’s vital and important victory at Chelsea was particularly notable for the manner in which Pep deployed his three fit centre backs, Stones, Akanji and Ake while Dias and Laporte remain injured…
I was surprised when Pep, with Ake and Laporte injured, signed a fifth centre back in Akanji just after the start of the season…however, once again he has been proved right and they are all needed on a continuing basis even though I had early doubts about Akanji…
He seemed to be not quite top four material and his performances for Switzerland in Qatar appeared to back up that feeling…however, as his second half appearance at Chelsea proves, he continues to perform well and is a valuable member of the squad…
Pep started with three at the back against Chelsea – Walker still working his way back to full fitness, Stones, in the best form of his career, and the underrated Ake who rarely puts a foot wrong…
Arguably, his preference for a back three for much of the season stems from the need to accommodate Haaland, a traditional centre forward, up front rather than a false number nine who helps create a midfield overload…the extra back four player pushes up into midfield in compensation like Cancelo early on in the season and the prodigal Lewis more recently…
Pep is constantly varying this during the course of a game, let alone match to match…so when things were disjointed in the first half at Chelsea, he brought on Akanji and Lewis for the tiring Walker and out-of-position Cancelo, and reverted to a kind of back four again even though Lewis continued to push up into midfield…it did the trick…
The fluid back three or back four system is helped by the stellar abilities of Stones( and occasionally Akanji) on the right and Ake(and less occasionally Laporte) on the left to double as centre backs and full backs…Walker and Dias too can also operate on the right of a back three, although Dias and Laporte’s greatest effectiveness remains in the middle…
Most of all, the Chelsea win proved yet again that the depth of Pep’s squad is probably the greatest on the planet, let alone the Prem…bringing on Grealish and Mahrez as second half subs to combine for the winning goal underlined this, as the relentless push for four trophies heats up