THEYWOULD NOTCRACK
City flick the booster switch and fly all the way to the title
The 3,400 minutes that preceded it must have, at times, been pure purgatory. Yet for 20 minutes, at the end of this match, the fans of Manchester City could relax, enjoy, party even.
They were going to do it. They were going to win. They were going to get the 98 points needed to land the title, in this most astonishing of seasons.
Retaining it is never easy. Arsene Wenger could not do it at Arsenal. Don Revie never did it with Leeds. Nor did Bill Shankly at Liverpool.
Antonio Conte’s Chelsea rewrote the record books but a repeat was beyond him. And had a soothsayer told Pep Guardiola that 98 points would be the magic number to keep the trophy this season, he would probably have considered that feat beyond him, too.
What team can get 198 points across two seasons? The sort of team that can win 14 straight games under quite incredible pressure, perhaps.
That is what Manchester City had to do, in the end. After losing at Newcastle on January 29, City, we now know, would have to win every remaining league game to stay out of Liverpool’s reach.
had that been understood as the task on that night, few would have predicted they would be lifting the trophy on May 12.
It’s not about the money. There are plenty of clubs who have money. Manchester United had more money than their rivals for over a decade until Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea. They did not rack up 100 points in a season, or 98, or even 97. So first, how about Liverpool? We’ll get back to City in a minute.
how about the team who lost one game all season, achieved the third- highest top division points total in the history of english football and, somehow, it still wasn’t quite good enough. Manchester City should thank heavens for them, too. Nothing underscores the brilliance of Guardiola’s team more than the presence of Liverpool a short neck behind.
Liverpool are, without doubt, one of the greatest teams the competition has ever seen.
Just one draw for City in these final months — away at everton, at Manchester United, at home to Tottenham, Arsenal or Chelsea — and Liverpool would have won it.
And all this was achieved with the pressure of knowing that, too.
From a long way out, Guardiola has been convinced Liverpool would win their remaining games.
he knew City had to, as well. Lesser teams would have cracked, if only once. encapsulating this campaign is a battle of superlatives. Liverpool were amazingly good; incredibly, City were even better.
For Guardiola, this was a unique title, too. Since leaving Barcelona he tends to conclude these things in cruise control. his last four titles have been won by a combined 58 points — none by less than a 10-point margin.
So this would have felt different and it showed. Guardiola may have spoken of sleeping like a baby, but at times yesterday he appeared nervous as a kitten.
The pre-match warm-up found him sitting alone on the bench, drumming his fingers on the seat.
When Kyle Walker gave the ball away to spark a counter-attack by Alireza Jahanbakhsh in the first half, he sank to his knees. And that was before Liverpool scored.
This they did 17 minutes in, meaning with the teams tied here, Liverpool had returned to the top of the table. There was only one thing that could make it worse, and then that happened, too: Brighton also scored.
Interesting statistic about City this season: they have conceded more goals from set-pieces, as a percentage, than any other team in the league. So they remained consistent to the end. ederson fumbled a Glenn Murray shot around for a corner. It was a fine delivery from Pascal Gross towards the near post but neither ederson nor his defenders dealt with it and Murray headed in.
One can only imagine how that news was greeted at Anfield. even more deliriously perhaps, than on the south coast. Not least because the home support got precisely 83 seconds to glory in it, before City equalised. Laporte played the ball
through to David Silva, who in turn found Sergio Aguero. He has a habit of turning up trumps for City on days like this and yesterday was no exception. Matt Ryan has been good for Brighton this season but Aguero’s finish was slipped smartly through his legs.
And then away they went, through the gears, over the hill and all the way to the title. Until recent weeks, when teams have set up to frustrate them, City had a reputation for getting the job done early.
Certainly they have a booster switch. And, shocked by first-half developments, they hit it. Did they know what was going on at Anfield?
Of course they did. Guardiola had said he would be forbidding his staff from getting updates from elsewhere, but knowledge is unavoidable.
The word goes round the stadium. So the Brighton fans were soon chanting ‘1-0 to Liverpool’ as a means of winding up the visitors.
City are not a team to wind up, mind. The reaction was devastating.
Already level, City took the lead after 38 minutes. Riyad Mahrez curled in a corner and Aymeric Laporte lost Murray far too easily, his header close to unchallenged after a charge into the area. Another interesting statistic: City have scored a lower percentage of goals from set-pieces than any other team in the league this season. Still, if you’re going to save one up, today was the day. City were back on top.
So if, from there, the afternoon contained no dramatic final day twist, no ‘ Aguerooo’ or Michael Thomas moment, there was a redemption tale, of sorts.
The man who confirmed it would again be City’s year, who scored the third goal that as good as made sure of the title, was Mahrez. The man whose penalty miss in the final minutes at Anfield could have cost it all, had City been relegated to second place.
Mahrez has been consigned to the bench in recent weeks. Yet only when Guardiola admitted his gamble had not worked, and swapped Mahrez and Raheem Sterling on the flanks in the first half, did City take charge.
Mahrez on the right was different and by putting City two goals clear after 64 minutes, he consigned that Anfield error to the irrelevant past.
It was a lovely shot, too, Ryan had no chance. And it was much the same after 72 minutes, when Ilkay Gundogan powered a freekick into the top corner and the celebrations could begin in earnest.
What a title race this has been and what incredible champions it has produced. Take a good look, there really may not be another.