How De Zerbi’s tactics are changing the Premier League

In the opening week of the Premier League, we saw two of the title contenders Manchester City and Arsenal change things up tactically.

In possession, their managers Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta play a 3-2-5 formation while in defense, it turns into a 4-4-2.

However, in the opening matches of both these teams, they actually used a 3-1-6 in attack and progressed the ball in a 4-2-4 formation, very similar to how Brighton's manager Roberto de Zerbi plays.

When Brighton visited the Etihad Stadium in October last year, Guardiola was convinced that he had watched something entirely new. 

"They propose a type of game we're not used to," Guardiola said after a 3-1 Manchester City victory achieved with 48% possession. "His impact in England will be massive."

So why are the top managers in the league looking to play the De Zerbi way?

Positional play

In modern football, the top teams and managers all more or less look to use a form of football called Juego de Posicion (JdP), or positional play.

In short, what it requires is for teams to have superior technical ability than their opponents to create advantages in various sections of the field. 

You can gain an advantage in other ways as well, such as numerical advantage to create overloads in different sections of the field and dominate the opposition if your technical ability isn't far superior. 

But what Manchester City and Arsenal have, compared to most other teams is players who are versatile and can perform multiple roles to an elite level.

For example, Arsenal's front three of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus can all play in all three forward positions and they interchange when needed in attack.

In defense, one of their fullbacks such as Oleksandr Zinchenko will join in the midfield to progress the ball forward instead of hugging the touchline.

These interchangers allow the teams to be more unpredictable and make the job of the opposition players tougher to man-mark the attackers. 

Guardiola has constantly evolved as a manager and used various forms of positional play over the years.

It started with 'tiki-taka' during his days as Barcelona manager but now what he does is far from the quick, one-touch passing game.

What makes de Zerbi unique

The type of football we saw from Pep and Mikel in the first week, was similar to how De Zerbi uses the opposition press to gain an advantage in open spaces. 

Now it's important to mention that the Brighton manager also is an applicant of positional play.

But what he does is instead of passing and pressing like most JdP teams do, he tells his team to allow the opposition to press his defenders as much as possible and then to escape the press by passing it through, not by hoofing the ball long. 

This allows his team to attack with much more control and create better chances with the opposition defenders stretched. 

"The possession always depends on the opponents' pressure," De Zerbi once explained. 

"The tougher the pressure, the more vertical further development. The less opposing pressure, the greater our control of the match and possession of the ball will be."

Since De Zerbi's appointment, Brighton rank second behind Manchester City for the number of sequences of 10 or more passes from open play. 

They also rank second behind the champions for such sequences that end in a shot or a touch inside the box.

However, in terms of the efficiency of converting these pass sequences of 10 passes or more into sequences that end in a shot or touch inside the box, Brighton are even more effective than City.

While Brighton may not operate on a massive budget like Manchester City or even Arsenal, they ensure they play a brand of football that is of the highest level.

De Zerbi has managed to in many ways turn water into wine with his low-budget players.

However, credit must also be given to Brighton's recruitment as they are managing to unearth hidden gems such as Kaoru Mitoma of Japan and produce quality players from their academy like Evan Ferguson.

They are also astute at selling with players like Moises Caicedo being sold for over 100 million pounds and that ensures they can dip into the market and get cheaper replacements.

Whether that is sustainable for Brighton in the long term remains to be seen, but for De Zerbi, his influence alone shows that the sky is the limit for him and top clubs will be hovering around for his signature as a big and successful coaching career awaits.