The picture makes you look twice.
It is three minutes into Manchester City’s pre-season friendly against Bayern Munich in Japan, and the 2022-23 treble winners are playing with a new formation.
It is a 4-2-5.
That’s right — there’s nobody in goal.
Jack Grealish is just out of shot, on the left end of the forward line, in the screengrab below. But forget about him and focus your attention on City’s left-sided centre-back. The guy with the ball at his feet. The one wearing a luminous-yellow goalkeeper kit.
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Look. At. Ederson.
Even by Pep Guardiola’s standards, this feels extreme.
That wasn’t an isolated incident either. It was a tactic.
Less than 10 minutes later, Ruben Dias holds onto the ball when he is confronted by Bayern forward Serge Gnabry and waits for Ederson to step up and join him in the City back line.
The goalkeeper duly arrives, receives possession in what you could describe as an orthodox/unorthodox (delete as you see fit) back-four shape and…
…feeds the ball wide left to Nathan Ake.
City have beaten the first line of the Bayern press with the minimum of fuss.
Bayern, not surprisingly, seem baffled as to what to do. They were outnumbered by six players to four, but if they committed a fifth man forward, it would leave them five-versus-five at the back.
In other words, Ederson stepping into the back four created a guaranteed overload for City inside their own half – provided he didn’t get caught on the ball, which did happen on one occasion:
Here, late in the first half, Ederson is playing in advance of both his central defenders, bouncing the ball off Mateo Kovacic in a standard City third-man passing movement to release Dias…
….who is able to deliver a pass to the feet of Julian Alvarez, taking six Bayern players out of the game.
That match on the other side of the world not only made you wonder how Guardiola had spent his summer but also what we would see from Ederson at Turf Moor in Friday night’s first Premier League game of the season against Burnley.
The answer was unexpected — largely because of Burnley’s man-to-man setup out of possession, which left one City player free the whole time. That player happened to be their goalkeeper/deep-lying playmaker.
What followed was intriguing.
On three occasions in the opening 16 minutes, Ederson had the ball at his feet in open play for a combined total of 54 seconds without a Burnley player coming near him.
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It was a game of cat and mouse — in which the cat had no interest in chasing the mouse.
Even Ederson, arms outstretched with palms facing skyward, looks confused:
From the Burnley supporters’ perspective (and possibly some watching at home, too, judging by the comments on social media), this was annoying, albeit it was hard to tell at times whether the home fans were frustrated with their own team for not pressing Ederson, or with the City goalkeeper for effectively pausing the game.
Tactically it was fascinating, though. Both in terms of how Kompany thought Burnley could stop City from playing through them from the back (pressing Ederson rarely works out well for opponents — something we will come on to later) and how Guardiola tweaked things at half-time to find a solution.
Erling Haaland was the chief beneficiary of that shift in approach, even if both his goals on the night were scored before the break.
“If you can play from the ’keeper to the striker, why not? We should do it,” Haaland said afterwards.
Turf Moor, Burnley; Friday night.
Ederson has his foot on top of the ball, almost baiting the home side.
He waits. And waits. And waits.
The game is just 79 seconds old, but this is a sign of things to come.
Burnley are not going to press Ederson. Tactically, they are painting by numbers and not straying from their plan to man-to-man mark, with Ake and Manuel Akanji the only ‘safe’ passes on for Ederson.
After seven seconds with the ball at his feet, Ederson passes to Akanji and, rather than hold his position or drop back into his penalty area, which would be more conventional, steps forward.
Akanji returns the pass.
Ederson is now playing in the middle of a back three, with Akanji on one side of him and Ake the other, and in similar territory on the pitch to where we saw him in that friendly with Bayern.
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The only difference is that Kyle Walker, out of frame in the screengrab below, is much higher on the City right. Rico Lewis, the left-back on the team sheet – and only on the team sheet, is in the centre circle, forming a double pivot with Rodri, which is standard for City these days.
Unlike Bayern that day in Japan, none of the Burnley players have any intention of pressing Ederson.
Kompany’s mid-block is narrow, cutting off the supply lines to Lewis and Rodri in the centre of the pitch.
Ederson ends up sliding a ball to Akanji so he can push forward on the City right.
In the next example, Ederson has the ball at his feet for a full 20 seconds:
Cue that moment referred to earlier when he looks like a man who has walked down every aisle in the supermarket twice and still can’t find the item he’s looking for.
As the home crowd’s unrest becomes louder, Sander Berge eventually steps forward for Burnley, prompting Ederson to clip a pass to Alvarez, who switches with Kevin De Bruyne to find some space but…
…is unable to retain the ball under a challenge from Ameen Al-Dakhil, setting Burnley off on the attack:
Tactically, it’s so far, so good for Kompany.
The grab below highlights the extent to which his team locked onto City man for man.
Ederson needed to try something different – and did.
After another 20 seconds with the ball at his feet, he bypasses the first line of Burnley’s press.
With Lewis pulling to the left and breaking forward, space opens up for the Brazilian to drill a long ball in to the feet of Haaland, who has pinned Jordan Beyer:
Beyer wrestles the Norwegian to the floor, and City have a free kick:
Ederson continued to experiment.
In keeping with how he played in pre-season, he forms a back four again here, creating a triangle with Rodri and Akanji in just the same way as he did with Kovacic and Dias against Bayern.
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Burnley forward Zeki Amdouni ends up chasing his tail – a rare example of Ederson being pressed during Friday’s match.
The ball eventually comes back to the left-sided centre-back in the green jersey, matching shorts and white goalkeeper gloves, and he this time feeds Phil Foden:
Ultimately, though, City didn’t penetrate nearly enough in that first half through playing out, so something had to change.
Pressing Ederson rarely works because of a) how comfortable he is on the ball and b) how good City are at creating overloads that allow them to play out.
Indeed, the time that elapses between Ederson receiving and playing an open-play pass outside his penalty area is way above the average for a Premier League goalkeeper, which is a sign of both his composure and how reluctant opponents are to put him under pressure when he has the ball at his feet.
Invariably, it ends badly for teams who target Ederson.
The games against Real Madrid and Arsenal at the end of last season are good examples.
In the first grab below, which is from the first leg of the Champions League semi-final in the Bernabeu, Vinicius Junior chooses to chase his countryman, even though the Madrid players are outnumbered by seven to four.
There are normally triggers for teams to press, but it’s hard to know what the trigger is here. By the looks of things, Vinicius Jr has just gone rogue. Some fans love seeing a player aggressively chase a lost cause – Bruno Fernandes used to do it a lot for Manchester United – but unless that running is part of a coordinated approach, it’s often pointless.
Dias gets into position to receive from Ederson, with Luka Modric now entering the fray (on the far left of the next grab) to increase Madrid’s numbers to five:
Dias passes to John Stones and…
…Ilkay Gundogan is already in position to receive the next pass as the Madrid quintet converge too late.
Gundogan slides a pass wide to Walker and City are away:
Madrid didn’t learn.
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Here, in the second leg a week later, Karim Benzema chases down Ederson after a backpass by Stones:
Again, Benzema is wasting his energy. It’s four versus one initially – City have created a diamond shape that stretches their opponents – and the belated help the Madrid striker receives from two team-mates isn’t going to make any difference:
Ederson feeds Stones, Vinicius Jr is unable to get tight quickly enough and…
…De Bruyne takes up a position wide on the right for the next pass.
That kind of thing happened over and again over the two matches, as City won 5-1 on aggregate.
At home to Arsenal in late April, City mixed it up, going direct into Haaland at times to beat an aggressive high press, and on other occasions capitalising on moments when Mikel Arteta’s team lost their tactical discipline.
In the sequence shown below, Gabriel Jesus keeps creeping over towards Ederson, who doesn’t release the pass until the Arsenal forward is almost next to him. Rodri receives and feeds the free man — in this case, it is Stones.
It’s another example of that triangle we see constantly with City:
The next grabs show what happens when players get caught up in the emotion of the game.
Rodri passes back to Ederson, and Granit Xhaka leaves his fellow midfielder to hunt down the City ‘keeper:
Ederson feeds a pass into the feet of Gundogan, who sets the ball for the unmarked Rodri. Yes, it’s that same triangle: one to pass, one to set, one to receive and play forward. And you’re about to see it again in the phase of play that immediately follows.
Rodri plays in to Haaland…
…who sets the ball for Gundogan’s third-man run – a passage of play right through the middle of the pitch that unfolds because Xhaka tries to press Ederson.
“When you play teams that play man-to-man, the man that’s free is the ’keeper,” Guardiola said after the Burnley match. “With the quality of the ’keepers we have, with the quality of strikers we have, it’s another weapon we have to use.”
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It took a while for City to use their weapon effectively on Friday. But Ederson starts how he means to go in the second half, receiving a ball from the kick-off and striking it to Haaland wide on the right:
He nods down to Walker and City have possession inside the Burnley half in rather old-school fashion:
Ederson used that approach regularly in the second half but generally from a deeper position, which stretched the pitch and gave Haaland the space and opportunity to go one-versus-one against Beyer. Intelligent movement by Alvarez and Foden, who dragged the other two Burnley centre-backs nearer to the City goal, played a part in that too.
In the grab below, Beyer did just about enough to win the ball, but you can see the extent to which City succeeded in isolating Haaland’s marker.
The direct approach still required patience on City’s part but a different sort of patience to the first half, when Ederson edged higher up the pitch, stood still with his foot on top of the ball and waited for movement ahead of him, either from Burnley players or his team-mates.
After the interval, he generally stayed deeper and used his defenders to lure Burnley forward.
In the example below, Ederson swaps passes with Walker:
By the time Walker returns the ball to Ederson, six Burnley shirts have been enticed well up the pitch:
Ederson can now play over the top of them – eight of the 10 Burnley outfield players in total (out of frame, Foden in the far right of the picture is being marked and Connor Roberts has stepped forward to engage with Lewis on the City left).
One pass from Ederson – and it is a pass, not a punt – and Haaland is through on goal.
Fortunately for Burnley, the striker can’t take the ball cleanly.
Less than three minutes later, Ederson strikes another ball to him from deep.
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Haaland expertly pins his marker – you can’t overstate how good he is at this and also how much harder it would be for City to use this tactic if he was not in the team (see the Brentford game at the end of last season for an example) — and sets the ball for Alvarez, who is breaking forward along with Foden.
As Haaland peels to the left, Foden sprints forward on the right.
Alvarez slightly overhits his pass, otherwise Foden would be through:
The understanding between Haaland, Alvarez and Foden is excellent.
Alvarez, highlighted below, drops deep into midfield, knowing that Al-Dakhil, playing centre-back, will follow him because of his instructions to mark man-for-man. Although marked, Foden is now in a pocket of space behind and is an easy pick-out for a goalkeeper with Ederson’s level of distribution:
Indeed, Ederson’s pass is so good that Foden can play a first-time volley around the corner to Haaland…
…who is now one-versus-one and driving towards the Burnley area:
Haaland cuts infield, Alvarez bends his run into the right channel and City, once again, are attacking the Burnley goal in the blink of an eye.
Inevitably, frustration built in some Burnley players, just like it did with Xhaka at the Etihad in April.
When Walker passes this next ball back to Ederson, Anass Zaroury decides to press the goalkeeper:
Zaroury chases forlornly, Ederson calmly passes to Rodri, who turns…
…finds Akanji and…
…City are on the attack again.
The image below shows how Ederson played proportionally longer in the second half and how those passes were generally struck from deeper positions. You can also see the success he had when drilling balls into the left channel in the second half.
Below is an example of that type of pass – on this occasion, it led to Haaland winning the free kick from which City scored their final goal of the game.
Ederson’s ability to strike the ball with both precision and power is astonishing at times, but also easy to take for granted. He is not just kicking the ball far – it is pinged accurately.
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This 80-to-90-yard pass drops at Haaland’s feet close to the penalty area.
Another similar ball, 10 minutes later…
…picks out Foden in that left channel.
The more you watched in the second half, the more you came to realise that marking man-for-man high up the pitch, and giving Ederson the time and space to pick a pass from deep, was dangerous.
He sizes up his options here…
…swings that left boot…
…and it is Alvarez’s turn to run into that left channel.
Former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher, summarising for the match’s UK broadcaster Sky Sports, said he would “love to see Ederson play out (in an outfield position) for a game”.
But, in many ways, Ederson plays “out” for City every single week.
The conundrum for opponents is how to deal with both him and his team.
“I think more teams will come man-against-man this season,” Haaland said. “So bring it on!”
