SO BRIGHT SO BOLD SO BEAUTIFUL
No plan B but why does he need one when plan A has been...
And so, after seven days of chaos, order was restored on the weekend of April 14 and 15, 2018. The best team won. not the best team in every game, because that never happens, but the best team this Premier League season, and by a mile, too.
Better, much better, than Manchester United, as results over the last 48 hours showed. Better than Liverpool, too, despite Jurgen Klopp’s three straight wins, head to head.
The table does not lie. Manchester City sit 17 points off Liverpool with a game in hand, and 16 clear of Manchester United. Who knows how big those gaps will be by the end? Liverpool have bigger fish to fry, and maybe Manchester United, too, considering the FA Cup is their last chance of a trophy.
It depends, too, how interested City are in chasing records. There are still many new worlds to conquer if Pep Guardiola wants to leave what may prove an indelible mark on English football.
Three wins from five gives them the most points in a Premier League season, and the most victories of any title winner. Another 11 goals would make them the Premier League’s highest scorers. If they can improve their aggregate by four they would have the best goal difference — and gaining another three points on their closet rivals would make this the biggest title-winning margin of the modern era, too.
They missed out on equalling the earliest win by 24 hours, although 33 matches does equal Manchester United’s record from 2000-01, and winning with five games to spare is the match of the pre-Premier League’s best, Manchester United 1907-08 and Everton 1984-85, too.
So let us not pretend that one very bad week — and it really was rotten, no denying that — can besmirch the achievements of this team. The current Manchester City group is truly one of the greatest of this, or any, era in its domination of the domestic campaign.
That there was no quadruple — which Guardiola always said there would not be, so the climbdown was never his — and that City met their match against the mighty force of Liverpool in Europe, should not be allowed to cloud what we have seen. Most weeks, in most matches, they were magnificent. Indeed, it was foolishly
believed that Tottenham would heap further embarrassment on Guardiola on Saturday, that Klopp had shown the way with Liverpool’s Champions League performances, and these could be simply replicated. Wrong.
Tottenham were swept off the park trying to contain City — as many will be if concluding all it requires is a high press and a gung-ho ferociousness in midfield. Klopp had Liverpool primed to the brink of explosion to achieve that 5-1 aggregate score. Their defence and midfield have never been better. Their forwards finished almost every chance. If it was easy, do you not think another manager would have worked it out?
Sowhile these results were not flukes, City’s reverses were one- offs, exceptions in an otherwise fabulous season. Much like Manchester United’s second half at the Etihad nine days ago. Week in, week out, Manchester City were outstanding and performed with a relentless excellence that has set them apart, not just from contemporaries but from almost all of their predecessors.
And, most importantly, they have done this with an ambition, a style, a bravery that few have attempted. This is an aesthetic triumph, as well as an athletic one. City have made winning the league a thing of beauty.
They have spent money, yes, but that is what ambitious clubs do these days. Liverpool paid £75million for central defender Virgil van Dijk in January and he has been vital to their progress in Europe. Manchester United blew City out of the water financially for Alexis Sanchez, and have a costlier midfielder in Paul Pogba and forward in Romelu Lukaku. Yet United do not play football with City’s verve and spirit. They do not have the expansiveness of a squad so expensively assembled.
Long before Jay Rodriguez scored to deliver the title to Manchester City, old Trafford was frustrated by their team’s labouring against West Brom. That is not a dissatisfaction that has ever been felt across town. Yes, City have lost their way on occasions — most frustratingly when they could have won the league from 2-0 up against their neighbours — but largely because they refuse to compromise and attempt to close games down. Guardiola, it is said, has no plan B: yet why would we wish for negative, conservative thoughts, when plan A is so bright, so bold?
Win playing beautifully. It is the most daring thing. It is a high-wire act with no safety net and when it goes wrong, oh the fall and the mockery. Yet the way Guardiola wishes to start out — with 11 midfielders, he says, if he could — has produced some of the finest performances from any team, in any season.
City away at Everton last month were astonishing; they took champions Chelsea apart in September so completely that Antonio Conte’s team barely ventured outside their own half in the return; Manchester United, too, at old Trafford, bore scant comparison. And if Jose Mourinho’s players regained some pride with an unexpected away win in the return, they surrendered that instantly by handing City the title eight days later at home to the Premier League’s bottom club.
And, do not forget, this has been achieved while not leaning on either of the top two goalscorers in the Premier League this season. Mohamed Salah leads with 30, Harry Kane has 25. Sergio Aguero lies third on 21. Indeed Tottenham have as many goalscorers in the top 10 as City — yet have scored just 65 to their 93 this season.
So this is a triumph for Guardiola’s belief in midfield: in the creative power of Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva, in the wide play of Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane. He has transformed individuals we thought we knew well, taken others so far beyond their comfort zone it could only end in disaster. Yet it has not.
Fabian Delph could play left back. Sterling could outscore Lukaku. He upgraded his goalkeeper by recruiting Ederson and will surely do the same with his defence this summer. He remains utterly uncompromising. At the end of Saturday’s win over Tottenham, Guardiola could be found continuing to coach Kyle Walker, even as he celebrated an important victory.
So no wonder he needs his down time. Guardiola was off playing golf yesterday with, among others, his son Marius and tour professional Tommy Fleetwood. There is symmetry here. When Sir Alex Ferguson won his first Premier League title in 1992 he, too, was on a golf course with a son, and was informed that Aston Villa had lost to oldham, at the time threatened by relegation. It is unlikely Guardiola will be hanging around to win 12 more in Manchester, though.
The first is often the most special, however, and will feel that way to Guardiola, even if to many others it has seemed a procession since the 6-0 win over Watford that took City top of the table in September.
At the time, some were even speculating that Marco Silva’s team might have the potential to be another Leicester — they would have gone top had they won — but City’s six were a reminder that the bar would be set somewhat higher this season.
It has rarely been lowered since.