WE CAN STILL BLOW THE TITLE
Pep warns stars not to do a Devon Loch as Spurs try to upset the champions-elect
SO it turns out that one of modern football’s serial winners is also something of an authority on great sporting cock-ups.
Pep Guardiola, the manager of Manchester City, was present at Medinah when the US Ryder Cup team managed to throw away a 10-6 lead on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup.
Yesterday, meanwhile, he recalled a season in Spain when Real Madrid went from first to fourth in La Liga by losing six of their last seven games. After subsequently referencing an NBA Final that saw the Golden State Warriors lose three games on the bounce to turn a 3-1 lead in to a 4-3 defeat to the Cleveland Cavaliers, one wondered if Devon Loch and the story of the 1956 Grand National would be next. It is Aintree weekend, after all.
As it was, Guardiola didn’t go that far but his point had been colourfully and thoroughly made. His team really can blow this Premier League title race if they are not careful and Guardiola wants them to know it.
‘It can happen, I assure you,’ Guardiola said. ‘Whatever happens, it will be good for our future, we have to handle that. You have to learn that because at the end, if we are not able to do it and Manchester United win the league, all we can do is say “congratulations”, reflect on what we have done badly in the last month and move forward. But in football it can happen.’
Before City fans consider drawing the curtains and hiding under the bed for the next month, Guardiola’s comments require some context. Despite losing to United in such calamitous fashion last weekend, City need five points from their last six games to win the Premier League. Three of those games are at home against Swansea, Huddersfield and Brighton.
What Guardiola was referring to was merely how the pressure may build if his team don’t win their game at Tottenham this evening. If that result were to be followed by United victories at home to West Brom tomorrow and at Bournemouth on Wednesday night, City’s lead at the top would have shrunk from 16 points to seven in just 11 days. It remains utterly inconceivable that City will not win this title. They are the country’s best team by some distance and have been imperious for the vast majority of a league season that at one point contained a run of 18 successive victories.
City deserve to win the Premier League and they will win it even if Guardiola is happy to play along with a script that even nobody across town at Old Trafford would really dare to write.
‘Real Madrid, years ago, lost six games in a row and didn’t win the league,’ he said. ‘So of course it can happen, no doubts about that. The players here know that. It’s not necessary to say it.
‘In football, in sports it can happen. Two years ago for the first time in the NBA finals one team recovered from 3-1 down. Cavaliers won against Golden State Warriors 4-3.
‘They won three games in a row. But this is in our hands, we don’t depend on anyone else, and that’s a good advantage. So we have six games. We have to win two or win one and draw two games and tomorrow we’re going to start to do it the way we do it.’
Tottenham are dangerous opponents at Wembley tonight. Not yet sure of a top-four place and rested after a week without a game, Mauricio Pochettino’s team will not lack motivation.
Asked about Harry Kane’s ‘ghost goal’ against Stoke City last weekend, Guardiola genuinely didn’t know what the question was about. He was not even aware of the incident.
That itself provides an indication of how deeply the City manager has been wrapped up in the complexities of his own world this week.
Three defeats in a spin to Liverpool, United and Liverpool again have clearly consumed the Spaniard. There are bound to be knock- on effects for the City players. They are human beings after all. Tonight it will be interesting to see how they handle them. Against that background, victory would be a significant achievement.
‘It has not been easy to lift them,’ conceded Guardiola. ‘We tried to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League and also to win the Premier League and we didn’t. They are human beings and are disappointed because they gave it everything.
‘But we have to stand up. Now we have the most important title in front of us by far. You can win the Champions League by winning seven games. To win the league you must win a lot more.
‘Now we just need five points from six games.’