The Champions League final is going to be an all-English affair with Man City taking on Chelsea on Saturday. City are obviously the favourites to lift the trophy but manager Pep Guardiola has made it clear that it will be anything but a walk in the park for his side.
Man City have finally managed to get over their quarter-final voodoo to reach the finale of the UCL and given their great form this season, everyone’s putting their money on the recently crowned Premier League champions to come out as the winners of Europe as well.
Man City know only one way of playing football and that is to go forward but talking about Chelsea’s cohesiveness under Thomas Tuchel, Pep Guardiola has tried to explain why his players will find it tough to break down the London side on Saturday
“Why do Chelsea play so well?” the Manchester City boss told BT Sport, as quoted.
“Because they have three central defenders closer [to each other and two holding midfielders who correlate to each other. [In the structure] the five players [back three and two midfielders] and two [inside forwards] are so close.
“The distances [between them] are so close, but at the same time, they are so wide with the wing-backs and so [direct] with Werner making runs in behind.
“That’s why you cannot close [them down], because they push you [up front] and [wide], and have good good players in the middle.
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“That’s why it’s difficult to face them with the way they want to play with the ball.”
Chelsea have been one of the best defensive sides in Europe ever since Tuchel took charge and they will be relying on this very same power to shut down Manchester City and stop them from playing their free-flowing brand football.
Guardiola is going to use a false-nine system to try and unsettle the Chelsea backline but Man City have already lost twice to Chelsea in the past couple of months and this stat will surely be playing in Pep’s mind on Saturday.
And we have a feeling that just to make things right, the Man City boss might overdo things this weekend, thereby handing the Champions League trophy to Chelsea.
