Passing Stats Reveal the Tiki Taka Impact Pep Guardiola Is Having at Man City
Pep Guardiola's influence on Manchester City is becoming clearer and clearer to see as the players get more used to his systems and preferred style.
The 46-year-old was drilled in the art of tiki taka at Barcelona's La Masia academy from a young age, before later going on to coach the club and give rise to the next generation of stars off the club's famed production line.
That possession dominating style, keeping the ball in areas of the pitch, has made its way into the City team and data courtesy of EA SPORTS can reveals that the four most prolific passers during last weekend's Premier League action were City players.
The sky blues thrashed Liverpool 5-0 and exerted full control over the game.
Summer signing Danilo was the only player in the Premier League to complete over 100 passes in any of the 10 games contested between Saturday lunchtime and Monday night, while John Stones and David Silva completed 98 and 96 passes respectively.
Fernandinho was the fourth most prolific passer after finding team-mates on 78 occasions.
Player | Passes Attempted | Passes Completed |
Danilo (Man City) | 115 | 108 |
John Stones (Man City) | 101 | 98 |
David Silva (Man City) | 103 | 96 |
Fernandinho (Man City) | 87 | 78 |
Eric Bailly (Man Utd) | 79 | 72 |
Nacho Monreal (Arsenal) | 74 | 68 |
Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal) | 74 | 61 |
Cesar Azpilicueta (Chelsea) | 70 | 59 |
Kyle Walker (Man City) | 71 | 58 |
Nemanja Matic (Man Utd) | 64 | 58 |
Not only did City dominate in terms of overall passes, but Silva and Danilo also managed more passes in the opposition half than any other player in the Premier League.
Silva successfully found colleagues 55 times at an accuracy of 90%. It was 46 for Danilo, a Champions League winner with Real Madrid in each of the last two seasons, and 88% accuracy.
Player | Passes Complete (Opp. Half) | Completion % (Opp. Half) |
David Silva (Man City) | 55 | 90% |
Danilo (Man City) | 46 | 88% |
Antonio Valencia (Man Utd) | 39 | 81% |
Paul Pogba (Man Utd) | 38 | 81% |
Mesut Ozil (Arsenal) | 34 | 76% |
Ander Herrera (Man Utd) | 33 | 80% |
Aaron Mooy (Huddersfield) | 33 | 85% |
N'Golo Kante (Chelsea) | 33 | 83% |
Tom Carroll (Swansea) | 33 | 79% |
Kyle Walker (Man City) | 32 | 76% |
