On Sunday, Manchester City will host their local rival, Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium. Before the game, Pep Guardiola has guided his team to win five of their first seven Premier League games and the Cityzens remain undefeated this season.
The Red Devils on the other hand are doing great after losing their first two Premier League games, Erik ten Hag has gone on to win his following four straight games.
Tobias Schweinsteiger, a former midfielder for Bayern Munich II, while speaking on the match, thinks that Erik ten Hag can compete tactically with Pep Guardiola.
“I think the coaches are both quite the same,” he told United’s official website. “They’re both football coaches who are really good at the tactical aspect, have really good impact on the team and are very good at details and at analysing the other teams and finding solutions against them.
“It’ll be interesting who plays more football and I was very positive about United’s match against Liverpool. They didn’t play the goal-kicks short, they played long balls and went for the second balls. Against one of the best pressing teams, for me, this was a good coaching plan from Erik.
“Don’t play the goal-kicks short because Liverpool like to press high. I think there were 12 or 13 goal-kicks so 12 or 13 possibilities for Liverpool to press and win the ball. They didn’t give them the opportunity to press.
So I am looking forward to seeing which small things the coaches will change in the match against each other.”
The 40-year-old, who is currently in charge of Osnabruck in the German third tier, added: “I can imagine United could play a bit more defensively and go for counter-attacks. They did really well with counter-attacks in the last matches so I think this could be a big chance, especially with Marcus Rashford.
“I think he played really good matches in the last weeks and, if you can counter with him, he could be a weapon in this game.
“I saw a lot of things from Erik that I remember, especially in the training sessions, but we didn’t counter so much and do so well in the transitions after winning the ball. I think that can be a part where he can be working on with the team in the last weeks as that looked like they had trained more on this than we did in the past, on the transitions.
“I think the coaches respect each other. I know these coaches — they will focus on their teams and their team’s strengths so it could be interesting on who is focused more on their team’s strengths and who is focusing more on the opponents.
“I think it’s at City so United could play a little bit more defensively, like I’ve said, and looking to control the weapons from City and play a bit more on the counter. I think City will play forwards as it’s at the Etihad and they are favourites but I think, in that role, United have been really comfortable this season.”
