Pep’s Blues HAVE been exceptional this season
FOOTBALL is a curious thing at times.
City are still on course to have a better season than United’s famed Treble winners, and yet there is a view that they have had a disappointing campaign.
Sunday’s defeat at Southampton was a stark reminder of the old adage that you are only as good as your last game.
After destroying newly-crowned champions Liverpool on Thursday, the Blues were - we were reminded - probably one of the two best teams on the planet, along with the side they had just beaten 4-0. Three days later, and with their frailties again exposed, City were a team that has lost nine league games this season, which failed to replace Vincent Kompany and which is trailing the Scousers by 23 points.
Forget Liverpool. They have been exceptional this season.
And the need to buy two or three players in the transfer window is a case of boosting squad numbers after losing Kompany, David Silva and Leroy Sane.
After two years in which they achieved similar feats, City have dropped a level, proving they are human.
And yet they could still end the season by winning the Champions
League, the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup - as well as achieving a higher points total than the Reds in 1999 when they managed the unique achievement of winning the three biggest trophies available to English clubs.
It is often forgotten that, in that season, United drew a remarkable 13 games, and finished the season on 79 points.
If City win their remaining five matches - and you would expect them to do so they will surpass that by reaching 81.
That is a total which would also have won them the league title ahead of United in 1993, 2001 and 2011 as well, not to mention Arsenal in 1998 and Leicester in 2016.
After two years in which they achieved similar feats, City have dropped a level proving they are human
Which goes to show that, until City set a whole new standard, winning league titles was often down to other teams’ failings, as well as being the best team in a homogeneous bunch.
So the Blues could end the season with a higher points total than the legendary 1999 Reds, and take the Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup. And there remains a whiff of disappointment about the campaign?
That is what happens when you set a standard which the gods would struggle to match, which is exactly what City have done in the last two seasons.
And that is exactly what Pep
Guardiola meant when he said that simply buying new players is not the answer to the ‘inconsistency’ which has seen City lose nine league games.
The standard of the football, in an attacking sense, has not really dropped. Chances have not been converted as often as they have in the previous two seasons, but in terms of making those chances, and constructing moves of aesthetic beauty, the difference has been minimal.
Take Liverpool’s extreme achievement out of the equation, and City have been exceptional themselves - just not as exceptional as in the previous two years.