Manchester City

Bolton will be visiting Eastlands this weekend, and it will be an interesting clash of styles between the Wanderers and the Citizens.  Bolton have shown themselves to be an attacking, free-flowing offensive club this season.  Man City, on the other hand, have been a very defensive-minded group, a tactical philosophy which has generated a lot of criticism for manager Roberto Mancini.

Just park in front of the goal...

City have 26 points from 15 matches, Bolton have 23, but they have gained their points in very different manners.  Bolton have outscored their opponents, a leaky defense allowing 22 goals, yet scoring for themselves 28 times, fourth most in the league, and only one goal behind mighty Chelsea.  Manchester City have only scored 20 goals, middle of the pack, but they have conceded a miserly 12 goals, 2 more than Chelsea, but 4 less than anyone else.

Manchester City

There has been a lot of criticism of Roberto Mancini's tactics the first couple weeks of the season, and I have to say I don't particularly care for what he is trying to do, but I can at least see what his plan is. He is putting the emphasis on defense and possession. Apparently, his mindset is something along the lines of, "We have the talent to score whenever we want, and that is what the impact substitutes will be used for, but our first priority is keeping clean sheets."

In actuality, Man City's system is very similar to Chelsea in their final season under Jose Mourinho, the height of the "boring, boring Chelsea" era. The ingredient that Man City is missing in this comparison is Frank Lampard. All of their central midfielders are defensive, there is no one pushing up right behind the striker and chipping in with goals from late runs into the box. Against Liverpool today, both Yaya Toure and Gareth Barry (pictured) appeared to get forward more than one would expect, but neither is ideal for that role.

Once a club reaches the talent level that the Blues have, so much depends on mindset. And all Mancini wants them to think about is preventing goals, retaining possession, and scoring when they need to do so. There are going to be games like today, where they put several chances away, but we will see a lot more 1-0 than 3-2 at Eastlands this season. Eventually they will have to find the equivalent of a Lampard, a Steven Gerrard, a Cesc Fabregas, or a Paul Scholes, that is, an attacking central midfielder who scores goals as well as creating chances for teammates. This club is going to win a lot of matches this season, and probably will qualify for the Champion's League for next season, but they are not going to win the lead until they get that big piece in central midfield.

Champions League Hopefuls (Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City)

This match was a good opener to the season. Really end-to-end attacking stuff, especially early on.

Tottenham looked the much better side on the first half, and really should have gotten a goal, but Man City's defense held firm. This may not have been very surprising, as Roberto Mancini chose to play three holding midfielders in a very defensive formation. His tactics owed very much to the "We don't want to lose" school of management.

I think these clubs will both finish in the top five, and one of them could even push up into the top three. Here is what I took from their performance yesterday though. In their first match of the season, at home, against a big rival for fourth place, Spurs came out on fire, which they really should do. But they couldn't convert that into three points. Man City, on the other hand, were composed, withstood the early siege, grew more into the match as the second half went on, and got a good point away from home against an important rival, and they nearly stole all three points late, thanks to the ability to bring sheer quality such as Emanuel Adebayor and Adam Johnson off the bench.

As far as the managers go, I think Roberto Mancini has it all over Harry Redknapp tactically, although when it comes to motivating players for one match, 'arry probably has the edge.

To sum up, Spurs gave a quality performance fitting for a club whose ambitions include Champion's League football. Man City gave a composed and gritty performance, fitting for a club who might be ready to challenge for the Premier League title.