No shocks between Davids and Goliaths
THREE unbeaten teams at one end of the Premier League table have seen attention turn to the struggling teams.
Just as City raised the bar last season for most points, this season could set a new low for staying up; with almost a third of the campaign gone, there are teams with just eight points sitting outside the relegation zone.
Games between the Goliaths and Davids have produced no shocks, so is the tournament that boasts about its competitiveness losing its edge? If you ask Pep Guardiola, such gloomy forecasts are a little premature.
“If you judge what happened this season, yes, but you have to analyse over three or four seasons,” he said before the United game.
“When all the big teams always win over three or four seasons and the league is between the same contenders, you can say [there is] change because it didn’t happen before but to analyse that after just 11 games when it has never happened before...I would wait a little longer to make that opinion.”
Last weekend’s results showed an increased competitiveness as Newcastle beat Bournemouth, Cardiff beat Brighton and Wolves were extremely unlucky to leave the Emirates with only a point.
However, if the dominance of title contenders against relegation fodder is not yet a problem for the league it is fast approaching a major problem for anyone hoping to beat City to the title.
Guardiola’s team are actually bettering last season’s head-to-head tally, with a win over United and a draw at Liverpool giving them an extra four points. Having also beaten Tottenham and Arsenal away, City have overcome some of their toughest fixtures with less than half of the campaign gone. That doesn’t make them invincible, but it doesn’t bode well for any team travelling to Manchester if they’ve not been able to take Pep Guardiola advantage at their own home.
Under their manager, the Blues have lost just two league games at the Etihad – Chelsea in December 2016 and United earlier this year.
If the derby at Old Trafford was a hugely significant moment in last season’s title race, the visit of Liverpool on January 3 looks increasingly critical for Jurgen Klopp’s team.
It isn’t necessarily fatal for title contenders not to be able to take points off the defending champions when they meet them, but it leaves teams requiring the struggling sides in the league to fold against them and then somehow take some points off City – which is a much taller order.
While the standard of the bottom half of the table is lamented, the title race would have been much tighter at this point if some of the top teams had been able to inflict defeat on Guardiola’s men.