Champions League Performance Insights: How Paris Saint-Germain got their groove back

"In football, everything happens in the middle and when you control the middle, you control the game and they had more players there." With these post-match words, Man City head coach Pep Guardiola articulated what he considered the crux of his side's problems in their defeat at Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night.

As Guardiola asserted, this was a contest in which the French champions regularly had an extra man when building play and, from this, were able to pose City questions they had difficulty answering.

As demonstrated by this graphic of their average positions on the ball in their defensive/middle third, Luis Enrique's team succeeded in achieving a central overload in the build-up phase – often, a 5v4 through their centre-backs Marquinhos and Willian Pacho supported by midfielders Vitinha, João Neves, and Fabián Ruiz.

Against that fivesome, City had difficulty exerting pressure, as we see in the first video above. As a result of this, Paris were regularly able to find the spare man and, in turn, release into space their dangerous wide players.

In clip two, for example, we see Guardiola signalling to his players to push up with more intensity on the opposition but neither Phil Foden nor Matheus Nunes is able get tight enough to his man – Nuno Mendes and Kang-in Lee respectively – to stop them working the ball left for another 1v1 opportunity for the winger.

The third clip highlights City's struggles in dealing with Paris' spare man – in this instance, Ruiz. When Foden half-jumps towards Mendes, Manuel Akanji is drawn out from the back line to follow Ruiz. The knock-on effect is that Nunes is now left in a 1v1 with the dangerous Bradley Barcola who sprints into the space beyond him to set up the home side's first goal.

Akanji's example serves here to illustrate the risks of centre-backs stepping into midfield, which can expose defenders (usually full-backs) to 1v1 situations in large spaces, and we will return to this later with a reflection from UEFA technical observer Roy Hodgson.

If the video clips display Paris' intent to work the ball to their wide player, the graphic above shows the extent to which they looked to the flanks, with 82% of their passes into the final third going to the wide channels.

The next point concerns what happened after Paris had found their wide men. In the first half they could not get enough players into the box to capitalise – as seen in the first clip of this second video when no dark blue shirt is anywhere near Achraf Hakimi's low cross. As this and the subsequent clips show, there was a lack of movement and urgency from the home players in and around the box before the break. Consequently, they were unable to convert those wide attacking opportunities into penalty-box entries.

Yet that changed in the second half with a marked shift in attitude from Luis Enrique's players, who now displayed greater intent with dribbles, take-ons and positive actions inside the City box. Moreover, as Barcola's influence grew so did Paris' attacking threat from his left side – as reflected by the graphic above.

The above data shows there was now also an increase in the average number of Paris players attacking the box (up from 3.71 to 4.2) along with a climb in xG (from 0.56 to 1.86). For all the fine tactical detail in a football match, a basic requirement in order to get goals is to get bodies into the opposition box. Now Paris were doing that.

This video offers several examples of this greater urgency, starting with an opening clip that shows five Paris players in the box (including two on the edge of the five-metre box) as Ousmane Dembélé weaves in from the right, sidesteps a defender and smashes the ball against the goalframe. Similarly in clip two, the fact there are five players in the box when Désiré Doué's shot rebounds off the bar means that one of them – Barcola – can capitalise with the equalising goal.

As we see in the third clip, in which he creates their first goal, Barcola was a particular menace for City, as highlighted by the graphic below. He ended the game with the most take-ons (seven) and the second-most ball carries ending in the final third.

Roy Hodgson's player development lesson

To return to Paris' threat out wide, Wednesday's match offered a significant lesson about defending 1v1 and the space behind.

This was a topic explored by the UEFA analysis unit last season when Roberto Martínez suggested that development coaches should spend more time with young defenders working on their 1v1 ability as "the European game is moving towards players becoming better in 1v1s".

It remains a pertinent topic, as evidenced by Akanji's example for the first Paris goal which showed the risk of a centre-back stepping into midfield, given how Nunes was subsequently exposed. According to another UEFA observer, Roy Hodgson, there is a challenge that coaches face in maintaining defensive balance while pressing aggressively – and it warrants plenty of attention at development level.

Hodgson has already spoken this season about how defenders should cover for one another – citing the example of Inter's Stefan de Vrij on Matchday 6 – and here he returned to the challenge of man-marking while staying connected to your fellow defenders.

"For a defender today, it's important to understand distances – the distance to the attacker and the distance to their team-mate," said the former England manager. "They must assess the situation – is it correct to make a challenge and push up on your player or to hold your position?

"Many coaches nowadays will instruct defenders to follow a certain opposition player. But it's important that players assess the situation themselves. If they're leaving their space to step into midfield, what are the potential risks? Could the opposition release a player in behind them?

"These are decisions that players have to make and in the context of player development, I'd suggest youth coaches have this in mind as it's essential you get the distance right between the opposition and your team-mate."