No goalscoring centre-forward, no problem for the Premier League leaders – and the contrast with opponents Spurs is stark
A couple of weeks ago Pep Guardiola was asked about Manchester City’s shortage of options up front. “If we dream that the striker is going to solve our problems,” Guardiola replied, “we are not going to win the games. What will help us to still be there is the way we play.”
One of the hallmarks of this strange season, with its relentless churn of games and ceaselessly shifting narratives, is that what might once have been considered anomalous or remarkable now passes with barely a murmur. Sunday 7.15pm kick-offs. Champions League games getting moved to Hungary. And, perhaps most strangely of all: Manchester City are on course to win the Premier League while playing large chunks of the season without a recognised striker.
In part, the history of Premier League champions is the history of its most prolific goalscorers. From Alan Shearer at Blackburn to Thierry Henry at Arsenal to Jamie Vardy at Leicester, no team in the history of the competition have won without a reliable goalscoring centre-forward. Or, more often, several. Alex Ferguson always reckoned on being able to call on four strikers to allow for fluctuations in form or fitness. The same was true of City’s first two title wins under Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini.
This season, by contrast, City began with just two recognised strikers in Sergio Agüero and Gabriel Jesus. Both have missed large parts of the season through injury or Covid-19. And though Jesus has contributed four league goals, and Agüero should feature in the second half of the season, City have largely learned to function without them. Ilkay Gündogan is their top league scorer (nine), followed by Raheem Sterling (eight), Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez (five each). Altogether, strikers have taken 3% of City’s touches this season. Quietly, imperceptibly, Guardiola has moulded City into the Premier League’s first elite post-striker team.
This, perhaps, is the main point of contrast between City and their opponents on Saturday evening. It is now more than three years since Guardiola slyly referred to Tottenham as the “Harry Kane team”, a tag that felt unjust at the time but feels wholly appropriate now. Under José Mourinho, Tottenham have devolved into a team largely in thrall to Kane’s brilliance, whether as goalscorer, creator or out-ball, and who look bereft in his absence.
And so in many ways Saturday’s game brings together two contrasting visions of attacking play: one built around the talismanic qualities of one or two brilliant individuals, and one built around an organic, mutating collective. In part, City’s post-striker era is merely a continuation of a longer-term move away from the traditional reliance on a goalscoring centre-forward, who against massed defences can often be marked or crowded out of the game. Liverpool’s use of Roberto Firmino, whose primary function is to create space and chances for Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané, falls into the same category.
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Of course, playing without a traditional No 9 is hardly a novelty: indeed, it has often been a hallmark of Guardiola sides in the past. What does feel new here is the almost total absence of a defined focal point. Lionel Messi was still the main goalscorer at Barcelona: you just didn’t know where he was going to pop up next. By contrast, Guardiola has deployed a revolving cast of players in the nominal No 9 role this season: Jesus, Mahrez, Foden, Gündogan, Ferran Torres and Kevin De Bruyne. Foden’s multifaceted role in the 4-1 demolition of Liverpool last weekend – part forward, part winger, part ball-winning midfielder – felt like the ultimate expression of this principle. “When we don’t play with a typical centre-forward, the people have to move a little bit more,” Guardiola has said. “But we have to arrive in the box.”