It’s never surprising how quickly perceptions change in football. The shine has come off Manchester City’s season this past week, and from looking peerless - certainly within their league and possibly across Europe - they now appear to be just a very good team.
After their chastening 3-0 defeat by Liverpool in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final was followed by a smash-and-grab 3-2 loss to Manchester United, concerns have resurfaced about the resilience of Pep Guardiola’s teams at the business end of the season. The prospect of City’s campaign meandering to a halt by mid-April with just the two trophies and dreams of summer holidays taking precedence has now become very real. Football life is tough at the top.
This creates obvious parallels to Guardiola’s time at Bayern Munich, in which the Champions League remained elusive and his lack of continental success was often used as a stick to beat him with, despite three consecutive Bundesliga titles. If he was a footballing Messiah, surely his teams should win even more?
This view failed to consider the inherent randomness in football and the small margins that can steer high-level competitive match-ups one way or another. One only has to refer to Barcelona’s 2015/16 side, which perhaps saw Luis Suárez, Neymar and Lionel Messi at their collaborative peak. A stoic Atlético Madrid shunted them out of the Champions League stage in the quarter-finals and Real Madrid went on to land the big prize. Like City, Barcelona secured a league title and left the world with memories of scintillating football, but not the definitive reward by which the best of the best are usually measured: a Champions League trophy.
Whatever happens during the rest of this season, Guardiola and City’s creation of such dominance within the Premier League should continue to be feted, for it is unlikely to recur in such a stark fashion. Expected goals throw some added light on that achievement, with only five games out of 32 seeing City allow an expectation greater than one goal, a stat that shows just how far their defence has progressed year on year.
Overall, the team has shown itself to be clearly superior to the rest of the league, with the goals for and against columns matched by statistical expectation. That level of superiority is well ahead of any other team in recent seasons. The Premier League is meant to be competitive, at least within its upper echelon, and the form of City during the autumn saw them lay waste to the rest of the division. That they may have regressed post-Christmas to become merely one of the better teams in the league does not discount the form they showed prior.
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That form is the primary reason why many are reluctant to write off the second leg of their tie with Liverpool, despite the huge deficit. Prior to the second-half collapse against United, City’s first-half display - in which they took all the shots and scored twice -reminded us that this team is well capable of creating a dominant display, particularly at the Etihad.
However, because of that drop off in the derby, there are justifiable questions to be asked about tiredness in the squad. Before Christmas this column discussed the heavy usage of key members of the first team, particularly the ageing legs of Fernandinho and David Silva in midfield, while Vincent Kompany has recently found favour as a starter and it’s hard to imagine he remains the physical force he once was.
It was simple to theorise that the team could be storing up trouble for later and this current blip appears to hint that that could be the case. Guardiola has rotated slightly, but scarcely done without specific key men while fighting on multiple fronts, with Premier League and Champions League line-ups usually stable.
It’s also possible that the last week has been the perfect storm for their opponents. Prior to the quarter-final first leg, Liverpool were the only team to have scored more than two against City in a game this season and now they’ve done it twice, both times at Anfield.
It’s clear that Liverpool are a stylistic match for City and have improved as the season has progressed. United, meanwhile, can consider themselves fortunate to have nailed the three big opportunities they created, as they only took five shots in the entire game. A full league season usually finds itself with a “deserved” winner; less frequently can the same be said about a single game.
Where next for City? Defensive issues were addressed almost wholesale last summer, and the team’s attacking options remain enticing and varied with players approaching their peak years right through the team. Perhaps this summer will see the question of midfield resilience addressed; after all, Fernandinho and David Silva can’t go on forever.
Nevertheless, what City have achieved this season will see them recalled as a historically great Premier League side, and Guardiola has proved his methods don’t just work but can thrive in the richest league in the world. His influence on the league will be missed when he’s gone.
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