Manchester City have become an effective counter-attacking team this season. Sunday’s performance at Arsenal was unlike anything ever seen from a Pep Guardiola side.
After the relative disaster of last season, Pep Guardiola had to shake things up.
His Manchester City side had become far too beatable. They lost nine of their first 28 Premier League games in 2024-25, before eventually recovering to finish third, but they still ended up trophyless for the first time since Guardiola’s first season in charge in 2016-17.
So, with ground to make up on Liverpool at the top of the table and something of a trophy drought setting in, he needed to find a solution.
The Spaniard has constantly tweaked his tactics throughout his managerial career, consistently coming up with new and novel ways to surprise his opponents. From the ball-playing goalkeeper to the false nine, from inverting his full-backs to playing centre-backs in midfield, he is the king of doing something unexpected.
This season, though, his City side have played in a way that they have never done before. And it has arguably been the most surprising tactical shift that Guardiola has ever made.
Everything any of his teams has ever done has always involved possession, and lots of it. His City side have topped the possession charts in each of his nine full seasons in England, seeing at least 61.5% of the ball in every one. It has been one part of his game that he has never compromised on.
But the early evidence of 2025-26 suggests he is willing to do things a bit differently.
In a 1-1 draw at the Emirates on Sunday afternoon, City had just 33.2% possession, the lowest share any Guardiola team has ever had in a league match. It was also the lowest for City since October 2010 (34.8%, also vs Arsenal), when they were in the early days of Roberto Mancini’s reign.
There have also only been six instances of a team having less possession in a Premier League game this season, and four of them were newly promoted clubs, two of whom had been reduced to 10 men. Giving up possession was to be expected of those teams; it isn’t of the eight-time top-flight champions.
This weekend, City were happy to drop back and allow Arsenal the ball. Part of the reason was that Erling Haaland opened the scoring in the ninth minute – the earliest Arsenal have conceded a Premier League goal for more than a year (also a ninth-minute Haaland goal vs City – but City’s willingness to give up possession was still stark.
They struck with a swift, direct attack upfield after Haaland had broken away from Arsenal pressure in the middle of the pitch with a clever pass to Tijjani Reijnders. The Netherlands international then broke forward before releasing Haaland to finish.
It was City’s third goal from a fast break (defined as an attempt created after a team quickly turn defence into attack after winning the ball in their own half) in the Premier League this season, meaning they have scored more such goals than any other team in the division. Only Manchester United (eight) have had more shots from fast breaks than City (seven).
The average expected goal value of each of City’s shots from quick breaks (0.27 xG per shot) is significantly higher than their overall season average (0.17 xG per shot), showing just how effective they are at creating high-value chances when there’s space to attack into. United, by comparison, have not scored a single goal from a fast break, averaging 0.15 xG per shot on the counter, compared to 0.13 xG per shot overall.
When City signed Reijnders, it’s unlikely they did so purely for his ability on the break, but he has proved an effective counter-attacking threat, with two shots and one goal from fast breaks, as well as his assist for Haaland on Sunday.
Perhaps it was a consideration, though. Guardiola acknowledged that the game was becoming more transitional in an interview with TNT Sports earlier this year. “Today, modern football is the way Bournemouth, Newcastle, Brighton and Liverpool play,” he said. “Modern football is not positional,” he continued, referring to the ‘positional play’ he bases his possession football on.
This time, Guardiola appears to be reacting to the changing trends in football rather than shaping them himself.
Haaland showed at Borussia Dortmund how effective he can be on the transition, and City are taking advantage this season, attacking up the pitch with fewer passes per sequence than in any other season under Guardiola, as the below graphic shows.
Jonathan Manuel / Data AnalystThe performance at Arsenal came just a week after they’d had just 45.3% possession in a 3-0 win over United. That means that they have had less than 50% of the ball as many times already this season (twice) as they did in any of the previous five seasons (at most twice in any of those campaigns; zero times in 2021-22).
But while against United the result was beyond doubt by the closing stages, at Arsenal Pep tried to shut up shop to protect his lead. City dropped deeper and deeper; Nathan Aké and Nico González replaced attackers Phil Foden and Haaland. They managed just one shot from the 58th minute onwards and were made to pay when Gabriel Martinelli raced onto Eberechi Eze’s through ball to equalise.
It can’t have been easy for Guardiola to watch. He normally wants his teams to protect their leads by keeping the ball away from their opponents, but on this occasion, there was an acknowledgement of Arsenal’s threat as he looked to hold out for a narrow win.
City completed just 229 passes over the 90 minutes, the second fewest ever by a City side under Guardiola. They didn’t try to play out quite as much as they usually do, perhaps to protect new signing Gianluigi Donnarumma in goal.
He isn’t exactly bad on the ball, but he is a downgrade on Ederson in this regard, and his signing – in particular his ability with his feet – has been a topic of wide discussion in recent weeks.
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3 weeks ago Ali TweedaleGuardiola instructed his new goalkeeper to go long as much as possible on Sunday. As a result, Donnarumma completed just 51.9% of his passes but never looked under threat of giving the ball away, in part because he knew he could go long whenever he came under any pressure.
Questions have been raised as to whether City can continue to play their passing game with Donnarumma in goal, but while that remains to be seen, the assurance he brings might just be enough to warrant signing him and adjusting their tactics to suit him.
At the Emirates, as well as making two saves, Donnarumma was a very useful presence at defensive corners, where Arsenal are usually so dangerous but barely threatened on this occasion. No goalkeeper has punched clear more crosses in a Premier League game this season than Donnarumma did against Arsenal (four). This came after he punched three crosses clear against United.
It’s impossible to say precisely how valuable that ability will prove over the course of his time at City compared to the ball-playing ability of another goalkeeper, but he almost single-handedly dealt with a string of corners on Sunday and will surely see off a few more before the season is out. Perhaps going long more often in a more transitional Premier League is a worthy payoff for his ability under crosses.
Going forwards, we are unlikely to see City sit back like they did on Sunday against many more opponents. This is Guardiola, after all, and he isn’t going to rip up his rulebook entirely.
But Liverpool won the league last season while scoring more fast-break goals (14) than any other team in the league, and if City are to make more of the title race this time around, they are going to need to be a more multifaceted team than they were last term. More counter-attacking threat will only aid their chances.
Mixed results so far in 2025-26 show they are still finding their feet, but a defence-first, reactive and effective display at Arsenal might just be the start of something very new for Guardiola and Manchester City.
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