Marvelous ⛲🌤️

I think Pep in the Second leg was not preparing for the Real Madrid game, he was preparing for Arsenal on Sunday. Pep went with an ultra aggressive in a 4-3-3 or 4-1-4-1 depending on the midfield width The defense partnership of Khusanov-Dias knowing Guehi misses out on the final, front line, Wide isolation of Doku and direct runs of Cherki with Haaland central, I think he will stick to this on Sunday too They pressed high from the first minute, flooded forward with runners into the box, and had lots of shot early, they were not doing a containment job at all, it was about stretching the pitch wide and testing transitions , and it screams that "how will this work vs Arsenal's high line and compact shape?" Even After the Red Card City are down to 10 men early, tie basically dead after that Vinicus goal. They didn’t pack the bus to prevent high score line, instead they ditched the full high press a bit and dropped deeper initially to avoid getting carved up, but stayed ambitious. At half-time he subs on Marc Guéhi and Aké, shifting into a fluid back-three shape that becomes 5-1-3 or 3-3-3 (Khusanov central, fullbacks Nunes & Aït-Nouri pushing high and wide as wing-backs basically). Doku tucks in centrally to link with Cherki, creating overloads behind Haaland. They kept going forward still and had 22 shots total, It looked like Pep was deliberately testing strength under disadvantage, squad depth, and shape-shifting without losing attacking structure. Pep subbed Haaland at 57 minutes purely tactically (not injury ) With the game gone, why risk your best finisher when Arsenal await at Wembley? The whole setup – width from Doku/Cherki, attacking fullbacks, Rodri/Reijnders controlling, Cherki's vision in pockets is tailor-made to stretch Arsenal's defence wide, isolate their fullbacks, and create central overloads. Arsenal press hard and sit compact; this fluid 10-man system showed exactly how City could counter that, exploit gaps on transitions, and still keep threats even when a man down. Pep even called Arsenal "the best team in England so far... the best team in Europe" after the game, like he was already mentally shifting focus to Arsenal and he just finished preparing for that match.

Notice how Pep knew that Arsenals defenders have no clue what to do with the ball… City players don’t press the Arsenal backline