Everyone seems to have agreed that Manchester City is Premiership champions in waiting. The debate appears no longer whether City would win the league, it is now about whether they would win it without losing a single match. The way Pep Guardiola has got his boys playing it is increasingly becoming hard to find where they will fall and suffer defeat. They have knocked Liverpool for five goals and just last weekend they scored three against Arsenal and that was after they already beat Chelsea away. Their next two tough games are against Manchester United away and Tottenham Hotspur at home, both games coming in December. They can afford to draw the two games, although they have solid chances of winning them. Mourinho seems confused and distracted at the moment and you can see it is affecting the whole team. Chelsea were there to be taken last weekend because of the crisis going on but Mourinho decided to go defensive, especially in the second half. The rest is history.
As for the game against Spurs, City are playing at home. Pep has already started mind games with Pochettino by calling Spurs the Harry Kane team. Poch was angry with the suggestion that his well organised crew was a one-man team. That would definitely play on his mind when the two clubs meet in December and may affect his team selection or tactics. He may want to prove to Pep in particular that his club is bigger than any player and thus limit Kane’s contribution in the match-up. All he needs to remember is the fact that Argentina won the World Cup when the squad was described as the Diego Maradona team but has not won anything since then, even though it boasts of world class players like Messi, Di Maria, Aguero, Higuain, Tevez, Mascherano, etc, etc.
It is very true that football is not mathematics where 2+2=4, but Pep Guardiola has turned the game into an art, using scientific calculations and deductions to come with an almost perfect exhibition. When you watch City play in the stadium or on TV, they are so precise you can almost see it when they are on to a move from which they will score.
When Manchester United dominated the Premier League during Sir Alex Ferguson’s time, most opposing players admit that they already believed they had lost the game against United even before they got on the pitch. They said they only went on to play the games with the mindset of not losing by too many goals. That fear factor is back amongst the players, the only difference now is that the clubs fear Manchester City and not their Red Devils neighbours.
Having said that, although as it is now, it seems hard to see any club in the Premiership that will outscore the sky blue boys, we need to remember that we are still just in the 11th week of the season and we still have over 20 games to go. This is football after all and anything can happen. Injuries, suspensions, loss of form, in house crisis, etc, can creep their ugly heads and derail a perfectly laid out plan. That would be the hope and prayer of City’s title rivals. As it is right now, Manchester City are quite literally, miles ahead of the chasing pack, and as much as it pains me to say this, they will take some catching up with.
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