Real Madrid 1-2 Manchester City Review

CL League Phase GW6

For a team at the beginning of a new cycle, with players still to move on in the summer, and plenty that hadn’t experienced these types of games in the Champions League. This was a good step forward for the team. Some showed the quality we can expect for years to come. Of course, there is work to be done, but you wouldn’t be at the beginning of a cycle if you had no areas to improve.

MOTM: Nico O’Reilly

Aged 20 years and 264 days, Nico O'Reilly is the second-youngest player to score for an English club against Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League after Alan Smith for Leeds United in March 2001 (20y 129d).

Notable Stats:

• For the fifth time this season in all competitions, Manchester City have named an unchanged starting XI. It's as many unchanged XIs as Pep Guardiola had named in 2018-19 (0), 2019-20 (0), 2020-21 (1), 2021-22 (2), 2022-23 (0), 2023-24 (0), and 2024-25 (2) combined.

• Tonight is Erling Haaland's 50th start in the UEFA Champions League, in which he has scored 51 goals - the most goals ever by a player in his first 50 starts in the competition.

• Since 2016/17, when Pep Guardiola took charge of the Citizens, only one club has won multiple away games against Real Madrid in the Champions League. Manchester City.

• This was only the second time in Real Madrid's history that they had scored first but gone behind at half-time of a European Cup/Champions League game, after March 1991 vs Spartak Moscow.

Game Stats:

Real Madrid 1-2 Manchester City

• xG: 1.71 - 2.59

• xThreat: 1.33 - 0.86

• Possession: 51.5% - 48.5%

• Field Tilt: 40.1% - 59.9%

• Penalty Box Shots: 9 - 9

• Deep Entries: 12 - 12

• PPDA: 7.1 - 8.7

• High Turnovers: 3 - 0

Erling Haaland scored his first career goal at the Bernabéu.

Manchester City win their first game at the Bernabéu since 2020. Under Guardiola, their record at the stadium is 2W 2D 2L.

The back four of O'Reilly, Gvardiol, Dias, and Nunes have won 8 of 9 games started together this season.

If you want to stay up-to-date on individual player minutes, back four combinations, underlying numbers, and more, check out the live Google sheet below. 👇

No changes for Manchester City from the Sunderland match, Cherki keeps his place, and here is how they looked to set up in possession. O’Reilly is pulling Rodrygo deeper. Silva pushes out to the right to allow Cherki to move inside. In the second half, to control the transition threat, O’Reilly tucked inside next to Nico, moving to a 3-2. Madrid defends in a 4-4-2 out of possession with Rodrygo and Bellingham with the midfield line, Vinicius and Garcia inside, ready to jump on a loose ball to counter.

For pressing Real Madrid, Manchester City looked to put pressure on Courtois to go long, where Manchester City had the +1 on the backline. Silva and Foden are covering the two pivots, and then they can apply pressure further forward, keeping them in their cover shadow. Bernardo to Courtois and Foden to Asencio. Haaland to sit on Rudiger, pushing Madrid to play over to the left side of City.

It was a nervous start from Manchester City, where Madrid were able to generate several counters in the first 20 minutes of the game. Whether it was the poor passes by Gvardiol and O’Reilly. Central defenders are not aggressive, jumping onto Vinicius and Garcia. Silva losing his duel to Carreras, Nico dragged out wide, in the lead-up to the Madrid goal.

All of which improved as the first half went on. Manchester City became more aggressive in those duels to control the transitions better and were settled on the ball. Helped by O’Reilly tucking inside in the second half to form a 3-2 next to Nico Gonzalez.

Manchester City, on the other hand, struggled in those opening twenty minutes to generate chances. We weren’t able to find Foden and Cherki inside. Doku cutting inside to shoot gets blocked, and Madrid turns to counter.

Rodrygo 28’ 1-0

Real Madrid open the scoring with Rodrygo. It all starts with Bernardo Silva losing the duel to Carreras, Nico Gonzalez is pulled out to support, and no one is tracking the run of Bellingham through the middle. He’s able to drive into the final third and play the pass out to Rodrygo. Past O’Reilly. Shooting across Donnaurmma to the far corner.

O'Reilly 35' 1-1 

Right-footed delivery from Cherki, same setup that we saw against Sunderland, but from the opposite side. Looking for Gvardiol at the top of the 6-yard box. Haaland, Dias, and O'Reilly inside. Silva on the keeper. Mistake by Courtois in his save and tapped in by Nico O'Reilly.

If you wanted to learn more about the change in corner routine, check out the thread I put together below. As we saw against Sunderland, Gvardiol is the main target for these deliveries, and they’re packing the box with O’Reilly, Haaland, and Dias. Silva on the keeper.

From there until the end of the first half, I thought Manchester City did well to take back control of the game and deny Real Madrid any more chances. Pushing for the second goal. Jeremy Doku was having more and more success down the left side against Asencio.

Haaland 43' (Pen) 1-2  

In the lead-up to the penalty, O'Reilly makes the underlapping run, and there is a mix-up between Valverde and Rodrygo. Not that Doku is bothered by needing to go through the two of them. O'Reilly chips the cross into the box, and Haaland is brought down by Rudiger. Giving away the penalty.

Also worth noting, you can see Foden free on the top of the box, and he was on several occasions, but they weren’t able to find him enough. Another way they could have generated more shots against Real Madrid. The same extends to playing through the lines into Foden and Cherki. Two routes they didn’t utilise enough.

Change of technique for Erling Haaland, watching the keeper, adding a slight pause before rolling the ball into the right side. If you watch back his penalties against Liverpool (H) this season, Brighton (H) last season, or Bournemouth (FA Cup) last season. All of those shooting to the right side, he doesn’t pause. Only against Brighton did he score.

Great chance for Haaland (45'+1’) to make 1-3, along with Cherki having the rebound shot before the first half finished. Starting from Donnarumma throwing it out to Doku off a corner. O’Reilly’s underlapping run is picked out, and he cuts it across the box to Haaland. Big save by Courtois.

The momentum continued from the first half into the second from Manchester City, tightening up their defence to limit the threat Madrid had. The change by Alonso to bring on Guler (58’) for Garcia and Diaz for Ceballos (67’) started to bring the game back to Real Madrid. Rodrygo is now free to operate on the left side. Diaz would tuck inside, and Valverde was free to push up. Several followed for Real Madrid between Bellingham (75’), Guler (77’), Vinicius (77’, 80’), and Endrick (84’, 85’).

Marmoush, Reijnders, and Savinho on for Haaland, Cherki, and Foden (70’). In hindsight, important to keep those players fresh ahead of Crystal Palace (A) on Sunday, but those were three players flagging. Savinho provided better support for Nunes, as well as a genuine outlet. He delivered very well until the final action. The performance was a good step forward for him. Marmoush and Reijnders to put more pressure on the backline of Madrid, the former still offering the threat to run in behind.

Madrid were having some success looking to overload Manchester City in the wide areas, drawing the defenders over to one side before switching across, so for the final minutes on came Ake for Doku (88’). Matching the runners into the box and having an additional player out wide to support. That move nullified the threat Madrid had out wide and secured the three points for Manchester City.

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Moving Forward

Looking back on the match, having had the time to rewatch it, I think it was a great experience for this team to go through. O’Reilly, Doku, Nunes, Lewis, Bobb, Ait-Nouri, Trafford, and Cherki have not played there before. Reijnders and Donnarumma are new to the team this season. As Guardiola mentioned after the game, there are plenty of positives to take, but remember that the level must improve in the knockout rounds to win at that ground.

The best way to control transitions is to be aggressive in duels, and Manchester City weren’t that in the first twenty minutes. They were nervous in possession, and it gave Real Madrid the opportunities to attack in transition. The use of O’Reilly inside would have helped here to control the match from the beginning. The same aggression is needed from your attacking players to drive back the opposition, which Doku was able to do as the first half went on. Again, you need that from the 1st minute in the knockout rounds of the CL if you want to progress.

In terms of the next improvement to make, I’m looking at pressing to lock teams off to one side and eliminate the pass inside. Once you’ve pushed a team over to the left, you cannot allow them an easy escape to the opposite side, where there is space. You also need your midfielders to come across and lock off the pass inside. From there, you can squeeze the opposition against the touchline.

It’s clear that in the summer, new midfielders will come in, they’ll be looking at a right-back to challenge Nunes, and there will be changes among the central defenders. Those replacements will continue to push the new team forward with fresher legs. But I don’t think that lack of recruitment in January will be the decisive factor in the team's success. It’s important that you bring in the right players, and those are almost exclusively summer moves. The quality is there. We’ve seen the progression. It’s whether that continues and if the depth options can deliver on the quality we all know they have.

Something that stood out against Fulham was the lack of players blocking shots. Real Madrid had one in target in this game due to all the shots being blocked. Dias (2), O’Reilly (2), Nunes (1), Gvardiol (1), and Nico (1) all stepped up.

Beyond his work off the ball to put pressure on Real Madrid, I don’t think Reijnders stood out in his appearance coming off the bench. Marmoush was similar, working hard to pressure their defenders, along with continuing to offer runs in behind.

Savinho made a good step forward off the bench, tracking back to support Nunes, being in a position to pick up long balls he’s headed down for him, and being an outlet after winning back possession. 3/3 dribbles completed. Preventing Madrid from settling too long in the City half. Doku was excellent at it in the second half, as he’s done for many games, but it’s something Savinho hasn’t delivered off the bench this season. It’s the right attitude to show after the comments Guardiola made. Now onto making the final action. A couple of times, he could have created the third goal to kill the game.

On the left side, Doku showed the type of outlet you need in these games to relieve pressure and consistently offer a threat to the opposition's goal. It took a while for him and O’Reilly to get their movement in sync, but he was always causing problems for Asencio and Valverde. He made 10 progressive carries, more than Rodrygo and Vincius combined. 4 carries into the penalty area, only one short of the Real Madrid team combined (5).

Next up for Manchester City is Crystal Palace (A) on Sunday, the 14th of December at 14:00 (UK time). Tonight they are playing in the Europa Conference League against Shelbourne (A). Daniel Munoz is having knee surgery and will miss the game. Jaydee Canvot was unwell, likely back involved against City. Mateta is expected to return to training on Friday and be involved at the weekend. Sarr is less likely to be involved.

In the Premier League this season, Crystal Palace are sitting in 4th on 26 points. Across all competitions, the only home matches they have lost were against AEK (ECL) and Manchester United (PL).