Playing 4-4-2 under Pep Guardiola? The pairing of Julian Alvarez and Erling Haaland is proving to be another brilliant move by Man City.

THE BIGGER PICTURE: In addition to seeking to establish a network of clubs, Clearlake Capital is focusing on enhancing Chelsea’s on-field performance. The Chelsea ownership is “constantly thinking about what that 100-point team looks like,” a reliable source told The Telegraph. putting together the ideal team of players who will help that 100-point team.

WHAT HAPPENS? If Chelsea were to purchase a small part in Sporting, the club would be used, like Strasbourg, to provide future Chelsea players with a path to elite football. That path might not necessarily lead to the Chelsea first team since the Blues frequently developed assets that they would later sell in order to comply with financial fair play laws.

“We have now embraced that European way of playing and our ideas about football,” remarked Ferdinand. “Being in and around the academies, the coaching is so different from when we were kids, when it was all screaming and tugging people in all directions. As opposed to now, when Guardiola’s culture, who has had a significant impact on that type of game, is very much in play. As Hoddle said, “We were stuck in our ways of playing 4-4-2 back in the 1970s and 1980s.”

But he has admitted that English football has changed him and that he has taken “many things” from his adopted home. “Here changed me, of course. I got to know new players, new styles, new managers, new ways to relate with the media, with my players. Every manager is a better manager than you were in the beginning.”

When playing four centre-backs in some games and switching Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji to full-backs last season, Guardiola took a tactic from Tony Pulis, who is typically viewed as his intellectual antithesis. Additionally, he has adopted an outmoded notion this season by using the 4-4-2 system that Hoddle cited as evidence of how out of date the English game has become.

Guardiola puts a lot of research and planning into every new idea, but the reasoning for his most recent tactical strategy is pretty straightforward: it is a means to accommodate his two elite strikers,
Two successful transfers
City accomplished two transfer coups in 2022, one in each window. They acquired Alvarez from River Plate in January, who was essentially unheard of outside of South America. They spent about £15 million ($18 million) for a player who was 21 years old at the time and enabled him to stay with his team through the summer. Prior to moving to England in May, Alvarez, the highest scorer in the Argentine first division, scored six goals in one game against Allianza Lima.

Later that year, City made public their signing of Haaland, a dominant Champions League performer who scored one goal per game while playing for Borussia Dortmund. A spectacular acquisition for City for only £51 million ($63 million), Alvarez suddenly had to compete for playing time with the most feared striker in the world.

However, in one game, Alvarez did start alongside Haaland, and things couldn’t have gone more smoothly as the Argentine scored twice and the Norwegian scored three times in a 6-0 rout of Nottingham Forest.

Alvarez only had three starts in the Premier League before to the World Cup, so he had to make the most of his substitute roles as the Norwegian got out to a fast start.