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Manchester City needs to change formations to accommodate Toure

By Rucker Haringey

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Manchester City cannot continue to play a 4-2-3-1 system and get the best out of Yaya Toure

The demise of Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure has been greatly exaggerated. While he isn’t the player he was just a few years ago, he’s still a well above average Premier League midfielder. The trouble is, Manuel Pellegrini is playing him out of position in his favored 4-2-3-1 formation.

Toure is a pretty easy target for fans that want to criticize him. His body language on the pitch is frequently poor and so much of the game comes so easily for him that he doesn’t appear to be giving maximum effort very often. The fact that his body type makes him look a bit heavy as well doesn’t help either.

Off the pitch, he does even more to make himself a target. Whether he’s complaining about City’s failure to properly celebrate his birthday or losing out on the African Player of the Year Award he comes off as entirely out of touch with reality. He’s not a player that the common man can easily identify with.

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Still, the criticism of his play for Manchester City this season has been unfair. Per Whoscored.com, he’s still their third highest statistically rated player on the season with a mark of 7.38. He only trails Kevin de Bruyne and Nicolas Otamendi by the narrowest of margins.

Even if you aren’t a fan of advanced statistics, his raw numbers are pretty good as well. He’s chipped in five goals and five assists in 21 Premier League appearances which is quite a healthy return. By any numerical measure, he’s having an above average season.

Still, when you watch him play it’s quite easy to be frustrated. He often fails to track runs from attacking midfielders in defense and seems to really pick and choose his time to make his own attacking runs. His moments of brilliance only highlight how mediocre he looks when he isn’t invested in the match.

Manuel Pellegrini can’t seem to find the right words to get the most out of his enigmatic midfielder. He’s tried the tough love approach and well as plactating and nothing seems to really change the way Toure plays on the pitch. He has to be maddening to manage.

The solution for City and Pellegrini doesn’t lie with trying to properly motivate Toure though. That’s the wrong tact to take at this point in the burly midfielder’s career. You aren’t going to change his emotional makeup or his philosophical approach to the game.

What you can change is where he is deployed out on the pitch. A change in formation is what Pellegrini needs to implement if he’s going to maximize Toure’s talents at 32 years of age.

Given his selective effort levels, he isn’t an ideal fit at any spot in City’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation. His offensive talent and desire to be on the ball almost necessitate that he play the number 10 role, but he doesn’t give you enough offensive runs to make that really work.

If you deploy him, instead, as a defensive midfielder, it’s too easy for him to get lost in the game. He isn’t likely to make any bursting runs forward that will contribute to the City attack and playing alongside another defensive minded player makes it easy for his attention to switch off.

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To solve this problem, Pellegrini should switch to a 4-1-4-1 formation to get the most out of Toure. Since he’s not likely to make many runs forward, you can take the pressure off of him by playing him as the sole defensive midfielder. He can focus on shielding the back four without the pressure of too many taxing runs in either defense or attack.

Given the prowess of the City attack he’d still get plenty of time on the ball. They tend to dominate possession which means Toure can frequently get forward as the slowly build up play. He’ll feel engaged with the offense and can spray the ball out to the plethora of his side’s attacking talent.

Some fans will argue that Toure is past his prime and that City shouldn’t shape their formation just to suit his needs. In a vacuum, I can’t argue with that line of thinking but it’s clear that City isn’t ready to move on from Toure. If you’re going to play him, you have to maximize his output on the pitch. This formation change accomplishes that perfectly.

Yaya Toure is still a great player in the Premier League even if he makes himself easy to dislike. He’s been good for Manchester City on the season, but they need him to be better if they’re going to win a Premier League title. The only way to make him great is for Manuel Pellegrini to make the bold switch from a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-1-4-1 formation.

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