When will Manchester City learn? Tactical tinkering and conceding in quickfire bursts costs Pep Guardiola's side once again

Tactics

Once again Pep Guardiola tinkered with his system in the Champions League and once again paid a heavy price. For the fourth successive season, Manchester City failed to make it past the quarter-finals as the Catalan left himself wide open to more accusations of overthinking his tactics.

Mindful of the speed and strength of Lyon’s wing-backs and how the French side had frequently exploited the space out wide in both group-stage matches last season - when City were twice forced to come from behind to claim a 2-2 draw in France after a 2-1 defeat at the Etihad - Guardiola opted to match up by sacrificing a creative midfielder.

So out went his preferred 4-3-3 and Phil Foden, who started as a false nine in City’s 2-1 victory over Real Madrid last week, as Guardiola chose instead to bring in Eric Garcia and switch to a back three. A pragmatic approach but, in reality, one that showed Lyon far too much respect and backfired anyway with Garcia and Fernandinho’s lack of communication to blame for that damaging first goal.

“What we have done is try to cover our weak points in relation to their strong points,” Guardiola explained. “They attack incredibly well in the channels and I didn’t want to leave them [exposed], for the build up it was better.”

In this more defensive-minded system, the onus was on City to score first but, once they went behind, the shortage of creativity was a frequent impediment and it was a surprise Guardiola did not change things at the interval because, when he did, the uplift in City’s tempo and urgency was marked. Off went Fernandinho and on came Mahrez, as Guardiola moved to a 4-2-3-1, and it left you wondering how differently things might have worked out had he been bolder from the off.

Style of play

It is rare City play at a pedestrian pace but, before the system change, they were slow to get the ball forward and spent a lot of time passing sideways between their three centre-halves, Rodri and Ilkay Gundogan, who was routinely deeper than he needed to be.

City are at their free-scoring best when they create overloads all over the pitch through persistent manipulation of space and brisk, incisive interplay. Yet Lyon were not given enough to think about and their back five were seldom dragged around or pulled out of position until Mahrez came on.

“He’s left out all his little magicians and it’s showing,” said a bemused Gary Lineker on BT Sport.

He would probably have encountered little in the way of disagreement from De Bruyne. Clearly unimpressed and frustrated at not having more creative bodies around him, City’s Belgium playmaker was critical of the initial set-up. “First half wasn’t good enough,” De Bruyne said. “I think we know that. We started slow, we didn’t have many options. The second half we played well, we had them under pressure. We played more offensive like we normally do.”

Substitutes

Mahrez’s introduction in the 56th minute, coupled with a change of formation, enabled City to drag themselves back into the game, but why did Guardiola leave it so late before bringing on any of what Rio Ferdinand called his “manipulators”?

Given the impact of Mahrez, it seemed a strange move. David Silva was not introduced until five minutes after Moussa Dembele had scored his first and Lyon’s second goal and, despite City being forced to chase the game, Bernardo and Foden never got the call from the bench to come on.

“The substitutes will be key now more than ever,” Ferdinand said. That was certainly true for Lyon, with Dembele, perhaps a little surprisingly overlooked from the start, making a devastating impact during his 15-minute cameo. Yet Mahrez had made his mark before then, not least in terms of the added impetus his presence gave De Bruyne.

Any system that detracts from De Bruyne’s talents or enables opponents to focus more exclusively on stifling the Belgian surely has its flaws but, with more targets to aim at and work with, Lyon suddenly found City’s talisman much harder to get to grips with. Mahrez was involved in the equaliser, the Algerian playing a lovely pass in behind for Raheem Sterling to run on to and pull back for De Bruyne to score.

Turning points

“It’s a different year, same stuff,” said De Bruyne. “We need to learn, it’s not good enough.”

The margins are thin in the Champions League but City’s capacity to keep shooting themselves in the foot in the competition is becoming troubling. Time and again, they lose their heads and concede in quickfire bursts, Dembele’s two goals coming in the space of just eight chaotic minutes during which Sterling contrived to miss an open net and Ederson blundered for the third goal.

“We made mistakes in both boxes at the key moments and that’s why we are out,” said Guardiola. “I think this competition is that situation [Sterling’s miss] - you have to equalise and go to extra time and after we concede the third goal. It’s this competition. You have to be perfect.”