City are now just two steps from heaven
FULHAM 0 0 MANCHESTER CITY 4 4
Pep Guardiola has a left-back on the hottest goalscoring streak in the team, and Josko Gvardiol’s two latest goals were even finished with his weaker right foot, all of which suggests that Manchester City have whatever it takes for the record fourth straight Premier League title.
The 21-year-old Gvardiol, a silky Croatian left-back acquired at the start of the season, now has five in seven games for City. The first City goal of his career only arrived in the draw at the Bernabeu last month. Since Real Madrid he has scored against Luton Town, Nottingham Forest and now two against Fulham as City come bounding down the final stretch of the season.
City are two wins from their sixth title of the Guardiola era, their eighth in the Premier League and their 10th league championship of all time. It may even be settled back in London on Tuesday against Spurs should Arsenal fail to beat Manchester United today. That last City defeat in any competition outside penalty shoot-outs remains the one at Villa Park on December 6, ever more distant with every win.
It can feel at times that the rest of English football has forgotten how to beat City. After that brief stumble back in December, before they went to Saudi Arabia and won the Fifa Club World Cup without conceding a goal in two games, Guardiola would say that the Aston Villa defeat had been his own team’s fault. They had played poorly. Now they never seem to do so.
This time City did not even need Erling Haaland’s finishing, which was erratic once again. He only truly got one chance after an hour that was wafted over the bar from a Kevin De Bruyne pass. Haaland was off the pitch by the time of City’s fourth, a penalty that was dispatched by his replacement Julian Alvarez. Phil Foden had scored City’s second, and Fulham finished their last home game of the season with 10 men after Issa Diop’s second yellow card.
The Fulham manager, Marco Silva, declared this a good season for his club, and well clear of the relegation places, that is certainly a case that can be made. But it always feels like a bad day when City come to visit.
They had their most famous fan, Noel Gallagher, in the away end, notably declining to take part in the City fans’ Poznan celebration that followed the second Gvardiol goal. There was an early ambitious push from Fulham, curtailed within 15 minutes as the usual suspects took control.
At £77m, Gvardiol was not cheap, but he is likely the most successful of the summer signings. He can play at centre-half and full-back and much is expected in both positions in a Guardiola team. His first goal was beautifully taken with his right foot, as was his second. No defender has ever scored a Premier League hat-trick and he had a hopeful look about him when Alvarez won the penalty in time added on at the end.
Kyle Walker, a first half replacement for Nathan Ake, instructed Alvarez to take it. The four City goals meant that the goal difference deficit to Arsenal was reduced to two. Although Guardiola later said he did not feel that goal difference would be a consideration.
City returned to Manchester yesterday afternoon before coming back to London on Tuesday for that night’s game at Spurs. Winning away at that new stadium is no small feat, even with Spurs’ indifferent form. It is just very hard to see City losing games, such is the level of their control. They have been run very close by Arsenal thus far and Guardiola went on at some length about how much his players enjoyed the pressure of these runs where a single bad game can change the destiny.
It was hard not to argue. Walker, Rodri, De Bruyne, Ederson and Bernardo Silva are just a few steeped in this manner of winning. They make it look very easy. De Bruyne’s exchange on 13 minutes with Gvardiol put the latter in a good position and a change of direction left Diop out of the picture. The finish with his right foot was calm and precise.
Diop had a bad day, eventually booked by Anthony Taylor in the second half for his persistent fouls on Haaland. The Fulham defender would be sent off in injury-time for another foul on substitute Alvarez. Before then Gvardiol had stretched with the outside of his right to guide Bernardo’s cross just inside the back post. Foden had scored a decisive second. The ball had spilled from a tackle by Palhinha on Silva after the latter had slipped away from Antonee Robinson.
This is a good Fulham squad, even if this defeat made it just one win in their last eight Premier League games. The challenge for them and Silva is doing it all over again next season and the gap to City remains as great as ever.
The pressure switches to Arsenal now and then, if Mikel Arteta’s side do win, back to City again on Tuesday. This run has to end somewhere, but signs that its end is imminent are few.