Maybe there's no shortage of that, but there are other teams who's line-ups may not be quite perfect, but they're just very strong, also as a team. I'm referring to Manchester City. They may have some problems in their squad, but they don't stop them from winning. Besides, if you look at the situation now, Tottenham are joining this race, who have had a great start to the season and also have a good squad.
For Manchester City, I don't see any gaps in their players. Their starters and reserves are at the same level and even if the starters can't play due to some problems like KDB's at the moment the reserves can still be a good option because their quality is not too different considering Manchester City players are really very good in their individual skills.
On the other hand Pep is also quite smart in terms of rotation and organising schemes that want to be done in every match they run so that makes Manchester City always one level above their opponents.
Pep is really something else. In the new tactic he introduced to the world, he no longer uses offensive fullbacks like he used to, he uses more compact players at the back, sometimes he goes completely without fullbacks and piles players in the center of the midfield. He created a defensive midfielder out of stopper john stones, a left back out of another stopper like nathan ake- I find it very boring to write about tactics at length, but to summarize guardiola's aim in this change in an extremely superficial way, I would say that it is to 'ensure fluidity in the transition game to the offense' and 'defensively not to leave space for the opponent to counterattack'. With the new tactic, especially after the world cup that ended in December, they faltered a lot in terms of the quality of the game, but when 3-4 months passed after the big change and the players got used to the new system, they became a machine in March.
The things Pep does when doing tactics are always unpredictable but the results are really perfect for them because with whatever scheme Pep does in the match they really always play very well and Pep knows the abilities of the players in his team so even if he makes changes in the middle of the match the results are still very good.
Today's match was the same, after Rodri's red card, instead of strengthening the defence they added more players in attack when Ake was replaced by Julian Alvarez but the result was very good because they played with 10 players but were able to dominate the midfield well.
The start of the second half was a bit of a disaster because 1 minute into the second half Rodri got a red card and of course this slightly reduced the intensity for sure for Manchester City.
But on the other hand with a 2-goal advantage at the moment I am not too doubtful about them and surely 3 points they will still get in this match even if they play with 10 players, it's just that surely in this case Pep will try to change some schemes and will slightly hold back the intensity of the attack unlike in the first half because still losing Rodri this will be a little disturbing if they try to go all out in the attack carried out.
Manchester City managed to secure victory even though they had to play with 10 players at the start of the second half. Manchester City attack was not like the first half after Rodri left the field, but Manchester City was still too strong for Nottingham Forest. Pep Guardiola did not make many substitutions in the second half, Pep only made three substitutions throughout the second half.
This victory makes Manchester City the only team that has managed to achieve perfect points in the 6 games they have played, the first position is still theirs because the points they have collected have not been able to be caught up by their rivals.
Playing against 11 players did not make Manchester City falter even though they could not add goals but they were able to delay the game very well and Nottingham Forrest could not do much even though they played with full strength.
In this match, the experience and individual skills of the players really made the difference so that even though Manchester City played limping, they were still on the same track as the previous few matches with dominance and high determination.
