Enzo Maresca's Tactical Gamble: Guehi's Midfield Masterstroke
Enzo Maresca was supposed to keep it simple. First Premier League game in charge of Manchester City, the champions bruised from a heavy defeat, the spotlight already glaring. Pick a straightforward XI, ease into the job, avoid drama.
He did the opposite.
Six defenders in the line-up. Marc Guehi not at centre-back, but stepping into the role vacated by Rodri as a holding midfielder. A tactical gamble that looked like managerial overthinking for most of a tense afternoon at Etihad Stadium – until it didn’t.
For 84 minutes, City stood on the brink of a full-blown crisis. A 3-0 humbling by Arsenal in the Community Shield had already raised questions. Trailing Bournemouth and staring at back-to-back defeats to open the season, those questions were sharpening into accusations.
The noise before kick-off had belonged to others. Manchester United and free-spending Tottenham had taken the early-season ridicule after dismal opening defeats. As the clock ticked down on Sunday, that mockery was ready to move across town and land squarely on City.
Then the pressure finally told.
Guehi, the experiment everyone had been debating since the warm-up, rose highest to power home an 84th-minute header – the 10th Premier League goal of his career – and drag City level. Moments later, Josko Gvardiol finished calmly to complete a comeback that felt, for long spells, wildly unlikely.
What had seemed like a curious selection suddenly looked like a calculated masterstroke.
The intrigue had started long before the late drama. During the warm-up, the back four worked through their drills with a City coach, and Guehi was nowhere near them. Instead, the England centre-back moved in midfield patterns, hinting at a role that was confirmed the second referee Jarred Gillett blew his whistle.
This was no emergency reshuffle. Maresca had designed it.
Instead of a story about a defender being exposed out of position, the narrative flipped. The former Crystal Palace captain became the unlikely hero of City’s midfield, anchoring play, snapping into challenges, and then delivering the crucial goal.
Guehi admitted the switch had surprised even him.
"It was just an idea the manager had, we worked on it in the week. We're trying different things, trying different solutions for the team," he told Sky Sports. "I'm glad today it paid off in the end."
Speaking to BBC Sport, he added that he had not played in midfield often, but enjoyed it because of the support around him: "I enjoyed it simply because I got so much help from so many people. When you have that you feel comfortable to just go out and play and do what you can for the team."
Maresca, who knows Guehi from his Crystal Palace days, had clearly seen something others hadn’t.
"Marc Guehi has never played as a midfielder, today he was very good, so I am happy with the effort from the players," he told BBC Match of the Day. "Sometimes you visualise things. I know Marc from Palace and I always thought he could play as a midfielder because he is very good. So we tried it for a few days and I think he was quite good."
Quite good was an understatement. Guehi won all three of his tackles – more than any other player on the pitch – completed 94.9% of his 59 passes and came out on top in eight of his 11 duels. Then, with City in trouble, he climbed above everyone to turn a tactical curiosity into the turning point of the match.
Little wonder he was relaxed enough afterwards to joke about what comes next. Asked where he might play next week, he smiled: "Who knows? Maybe up front. We'll see."
Behind the bold selection, there was another layer. Maresca had left Mateo Kovacic on the bench. With City pushing to reshape their midfield after a summer of upheaval, it was hard to ignore the message.
The Italian, who replaced Pep Guardiola in the summer, has been open about wanting reinforcements before the transfer window closes on 1 September. Just 50 minutes before kick-off, BBC Sport reported that City had agreed an £86m fee with Lille for midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi. Maresca said he knew nothing about the deal yet, having not spoken to the club’s hierarchy.
Bouaddi arrives with expectation heavy on his shoulders. At 18, the Moroccan midfielder steps into a City side that has lost 2024 Ballon d'Or winner Rodri to Barcelona and seen Tijjani Reijnders depart for Saudi Arabia. The price tag is huge. The responsibility even bigger.
He will be asked to operate in the pivot alongside club-record signing Elliot Anderson, who made his Premier League debut for City and lasted an hour. Anderson showed flashes of why City invested so heavily in him – covering ground, closing space, and cutting out danger. It was raw, but promising.
On Sunday, though, his midfield partner stole the show.
Guehi’s performance did more than rescue a result. It handed Maresca a potential long-term option. The manager later described him as "a solution" in the middle of the park, a phrase that will not go unnoticed in a squad still adjusting to life without its old heartbeat.
Outside the dressing room, the reaction was just as intrigued. Former City goalkeeper Joe Hart summed up the strange new reality.
"I think City look OK," he said. "It's obviously interesting when they have had such settled world class players that they have almost mixed and matched.
"Anderson and Guehi is an interesting one in midfield but that won't be a long-term thing, especially with Bouaddi coming in. I think with people coming back late from the World Cup, Maresca is just trying out things in-season, in-game.
"That's just where Manchester City are at the moment, they've completely changed everything about themselves but they're still expected to win."
On Sunday, they did. Just. With a centre-back reborn as a holding midfielder, a new manager gambling on his instincts, and a fanbase riding every lurch in this new era, City found a way.
The experiment worked once. With Bouaddi incoming and the season stretching out in front of them, the real question is whether Maresca keeps rolling the dice.
