Player Focus: Toure Finally Fitting the Bill in Deeper Midfield Role at City

All season the question for Manchester City has been how to get the best out of Yaya Toure. That he is a hugely talented player remains obvious. He has a capacity to score remarkable goals – such as the one he got in the 2-1 defeat at Arsenal – but he has also over the past year or so begun to look old. At 32, he doesn’t get up and down the pitch as well as he did, which in turn has placed additional pressure on his central midfield partner, which in turn has exposed the centre of City’s defence.

The obvious thing to do seemed to be to move Toure into a more advanced position, using Fernando and Fernanidnho as holding players. Doing that, though, meant moving David Silva out to the flank, restricting options in the use of Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Jesus Navas, and generally lessening the Spaniard’s opportunities to shape the game.

So Manuel Pellegrini, in Kyiv at least, opted for a counter-intuitive approach. Rather than giving Toure less defensive responsibility, he gave him more. Toure shielded the back four, drifting forwards only occasionally, allowing Fernando to press, with Fernandinho and Sterling shuttling on the flanks, while David Silva knitted everything together from a classic playmaker’s position behind the striker.

That was not how City played in the win over Liverpool in the Capital One Cup final, though. Although the ostensible shape was the same, it was Fernando who took up the deeper-lying position with Toure just in front of him to the left (something their respective heat maps for the two games show clearly). That was presumably because City’s aim against Dynamo was to press high up the pitch, something they didn’t do so much against Liverpool. That is demonstrated by the fact that the midfield five made seven of their 18 tackles against Dynamo in the opposition half as opposed to six of 27 against Liverpool (38% as against 22%).

Fernandinho revelled in the right-sided role, setting up Toure’s goal against Dynamo and then scoring the goal against Liverpool. Silva had a greater impact over the game than he has done for much of the season – he made five key passes and had three shots against Liverpool, and made three keys passes and had two shots (scoring one) against Dynamo compared to a season’s average of 2.6 key passes and 1.5 shots per game.

But the most striking thing was the impact on Toure’s performance. He made 2 tackles and 2 interceptions against Liverpool and one of each against Dynamo, which isn’t especially remarkable when set against a season’s average of 1.4 tackles and 0.9 interceptions per game. In that deep-lying role against Dynamo, though, he completed a staggering 98.3% of his 58 passes.

Having the time and space enabled him to use that range of passing ability in a way he can’t when he’s slightly further forward being harassed. Against Liverpool, he completed only 83.1% of 59 passes, much more in line with his season’s average of 87.8% completion of 59.8 passes per game.

The deeper position seems to suit him. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely possible to press Liverpool as City had Dynamo, but in games in which they do press, it seems reasonable to assume Toure will continue to play as the deeper-lying midfielder. It’s no coincidence that his WhoScored.com rating in Kyiv was as high as 9.05. The confidence gained from that carried over to Wembley where he again impressed with a rating of 8.15 – that’s against a season’s average of 7.3 in the league and Champions League.

The rejigged midfield suits him and suits City, and if Toure is off this summer, it may enable both he and Pellegrini to finish their City careers on a high.

What have you made of Toure's recent displays at the base of the City midfield? Let us know in the comments below