Manchester City presses with 4-3-3 line up. Forward players don’t press so aggressively and closely to opponent defense players. When one of the defenders takes the ball, Manchester City’s forward player who is closer to defender, closes to defense player without being so quick. So defense player has a little bit time to pass the ball. Forward players take position between opponent’s defenders and midfielders. So if opponent’s one of the midfielders take the ball, Manchester City’s forward players can support midfielders quickly.
Wingers take position in front of penalty box half-spaces. With that positioning, opponent’s full backs can’t go forward to be a pass option for stoppers because with Manchester City wingers’ positionings, connections between stoppers and full backs are cut by wingers. To pass to full backs, stoppers have to use long ball but before the ball reach to full backs, Manchester City wingers can meet full backs quickly. Because they were taking position in half-spaces. And because the distance between half-space and wing is not too much, like centre, wingers can cover full backs quickly.
If wingers have to shift to opponent’s one of the stoppers, Manchester City’s one of the centre midfielders closes to full back. But centre midfielder doesn’t go to cover full back immediately. After the ball started to go to full back, centre midfielder starts to shift to wing. And we can say that, if centre midfielder takes position too closer to centre, he can’t shift to full back quickly and opponent can make game from defense with full back comfortably. But if centre midfielder was taking position in half-space, he can cover full back quickly.
Manchester City’s midfielders take position closer to opponent’s midfielders and if opponent’s midfielder takes the ball, Manchester City midfielders press to midfielder quickly and aggressively. Don’t let him think to do something with the ball. So opponent’s midfielders can only pass back.
Defensive midfielder takes position behind right and left centre midfielders. He covers their back. Also defensive midfielder has an extra important role. He supports pressing and covers right and left centre midfielders’ backs but also he covers players who close to midfield from forward. It can be a problem for Manchester City.
Because, if at the same time, he has to support centre midfielders about pressing and cover between defense and midfield lines, he closes to centre midfielders and this time, there is a space between midfield and defense line for opponent. And opponents can use this space to make game.
For example, when winger closes to opponent’s stopper and centre midfielder closes to opponent’s full back, defensive midfielder has to close forward more to support centre midfielders about pressing. This time, opponent players can use between Manchester City’s defense and midfield lines to make game.
Defense line takes position in front of midfield line. Full backs can support pressing so high but stoppers don’t go forward too much. Otherwise, because there is no offside for opponent’s players if they start their run from their own half side, opponent’s players can escape from stopper’s behind more easily.
But also because stoppers don’t go forward too much, if opponent’s one of the forwards closes to midfield to take the ball, they don’t take position closer to forward player and between forward player and Manchester City stopper, there is enough distance for forward player to be effective with the ball if he takes the ball until stopper reaches him. Manchester City have a problem about that subject in high pressing. Opponents can benefit from this problem. For examle, Tottenham used this problem with Harry Kane. A lot of times, Harry Kane closed to midfield and because stoppers don’t take position close enough to him, Kane could escape his teammates Manchester City defense line’s behind.