Sam Allardyce has highlighted how Manchester United can beat Manchester City during Saturday’s FA Cup final.
Having won their fifth Premier League title in six years, Pep Guardiola has the chance of winning his second FA Cup with the Citizens this weekend.
Standing in their way are City’s close rivals, United, who managed to secure Champions League football for next season as well as winning the Carabao Cup back in February.
Looking ahead to the big clash at Wembley Stadium, one manager, who faced off against City in the Premier League not too long ago, has shared some details on what United may have to do to be in with a chance of winning the final.
Allardyce exposes Man City’s main weakness
Speaking on the latest edition of the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, Allardyce had this to say on how Erik ten Hag’s side could look to beat City this weekend.
He said: “I think there’s only one way you can exploit Man City and that’s Man City’s high line.
“They play so high up the pitch that if you’ve got the right amount of quality and the right quality of ball and the players on the front line are intelligent enough to stay onside, then you can get behind them.
“But it’s getting the ball and when you don’t get the ball as often as you would like then you have to maximise the times you do have the ball, so if your players mess it up then you cannot even try and expose that weakness, if it is a weakness.”
Allardyce’s first game in charge of Leeds United last month saw the Yorkshire club lose 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium against the champions.
With the home side having 81% possession in the game, this backs up Allardyce’s point of it being such a difficult task of having the ball against City and being able to be effective with it.
However, with the Citizens losing their previous outing against United, conceding more shots at goal (8) and shots on target (4) throughout the game despite having 71% of the possession, this shows how much of a danger the Red Devils can be.
With that in mind and what Allardyce had to say, it’s clear that City will need to be as strong out of possession in a defensive sense as they can be with the ball if they want to avoid losing the FA Cup to their rivals.
