Man City seek a century as Swansea hope for a miracle
Only the most preposterous turnaround can spare Swansea City from relegation on the final Sunday of the Premier League season but if any team can help fashion this mission improbable, it is Pep Guardiola’s dazzling Manchester City.
While Liverpool and Chelsea contend for the one remaining Champions League spot, Swansea fans are steeling themselves for the most deflating of afternoons at the other end of the table.
For only if the Welsh outfit can beat already-relegated Stoke City at the Liberty Stadium and champions City thrash Southampton at St Mary’s to effect a 10-goal swing will the Saints tumble out of the top flight instead of the Swans. It remains highly unlikely but because rampant City are seeking to underline their record-shredding campaign with a landmark century of points, few Southampton or Swansea fans can quite convince themselves it is over yet.
“We have to be careful. If there is one team in this league who have the capability of scoring a lot of goals, it’s Man City,” warned Southampton manager Mark Hughes.
Hughes should know. Managing Stoke earlier this season, he saw City rain in seven goals — one of 14 times Guardiola’s side
LONDON: We have to be careful. If there is one team in this league who have the capability of scoring a lot of goals, it’s Manchester City.
MARK HUGHES, Southampton manager
have scored four or more in all competitions this term.
Getting the three points on Sunday to finish with exactly 100 clearly means a good deal to the Spaniard, who noted after City’s 3-1 steamrollering of Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday that it would “finish this almost perfect season”.
Guardiola talked again of “trying to write a new page” in English football to emulate the Liverpool side of the late 1970s and 1980s and Manchester United in the 1990s. “To be the best, to be alongside those teams, we have to win more,” he added. “But (this season) we’ve done better than the others, we cannot deny.”
Indeed, a win at Southampton would make City’s league season, statistically at least, the finestever in the English top-flight.
Bob Paisley’s 1978-79 Liverpool side would have ended up with 98 if three points, rather than two, for a win had been employed then. Yet that season was over 42 games not 38 so, by any yardstick, City have been truly exceptional.