By the time David Silva scored the opening goal after 12 minutes, City had completed 96 passes to United’s five
City were averaging 63.7 per cent possession. In other words, twice as much of the ball as their opponents. At some point this ceases to be football as we know it and becomes another sport altogether.
Doubts over whether they have obeyed FFP regulations aside, that’s not to blame City. They are just very good and have exploited better than anybody else a financial environment that has inflated the gulf between rich and poor. That in-built inequality is the reason that after 12 rounds of games three teams were still unbeaten.
The Premier League, at least until recently, has always prided itself on its competitiveness. Everyone can beat everyone we keep being told. Yet at that 12-game mark, teams from the top five had played teams from the bottom five 20 times – and all 20 games had been won by the top five.
Project the current points totals over the season as a whole and it’s quite possible that Liverpool could get more than 90 points and still finish significantly adrift of City. It may also be that as few as 25 points will be enough to stay up. It’s a long time since the 40-point barrier managers used to speak of has actually been needed to guarantee survival.
And this isn’t purely an English phenomenon. Although La Liga is enjoying one of those chaotic seasons that come along every now and again, and Bayern Munich are having a rare season of strife, in France and Italy it’s a familiar story of Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus dominance. And even in Spain and Germany nobody really thinks that Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern are going to miss out on Champions League qualification.
This is a Europe-wide issue and one of the main driving forces behind the urge for a super league.
Or, rather, it’s the factor that may lead fans to accept a super league.
While there are some fans who seem to relish watching a superior side eviscerate a smaller one, most surely want to witness something resembling a contest – and domestic leagues are finding that increasingly difficult to deliver. A super league then becomes a logical next step, even though this will inevitably alienate clubs from the communities that produced them.
The inequality also shapes how football is played. Fifteen years ago there was only one Premier League game in the whole season in which
one side had more than 70 per cent possession; last season there were more than 80. More and more games are essentially attack against defence.
In part that’s a reaction to Guardiola’s Barcelona. Because they dominated the ball so much, other sides became more comfortable playing without the ball. Where once there may have been a sense of panic, even shame, if the opposition seemed to be bossing possession, teams began to realise they could still shape a game even without the ball. But it’s also because the disparity in resources is now so great that often one team simply cannot get the ball.
That in turn has a significant impact. It can lead to complacency and the sort of self-indulgence that so often seems to afflict PSG in Europe. Used to dominating in France, their players become used to pleasing themselves. But even for sides who play with discipline, the transition from playing a game with 70 per cent of the ball to one with 50 per cent is hard.
This has been one of Guardiola’s problems, not just at City but also at Bayern and, towards the end, at Barcelona as well. His sides would concede few goals because they controlled possession so well against weaker sides, but then be exposed defensively by teams who could play through their press. City’s performance at Anfield this season suggested he has begun to address that, but they still play in that conservative way rarely enough that the latter stages of the Champions League will be a big challenge.
And the point, anyway, is that this is indicative of a wider problem. Teams effectively end up playing two different sorts of football: one against those who are of their level and one against those who aren’t.