Football Ground Map
Football Ground Map
The winter period is usually where the Premier League title is won or lost. As the days grow darker, the nights longer, the air colder, matches come thick and fast and teams can find themselves spiralling in a run of bad form or poor performances. Then, add in the huge number of fixture postponements due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19, and it’s fair to say that this has been a long, hard winter in the 2021-22 season.
But while everyone else toiled and struggled, gasping for air amid player absences and mounting fixture pile-ups, Manchester City stood up and took the Premier League title race by the scruff of its neck. At the time of writing, Pep Guardiola’s side hold a nine-point lead at the top of table, and although second-place Liverpool have a game in hand, it is still a comfortable cushion on which Manchester City are perched.
Indeed, their recent 1-1 draw with Southampton at St Mary’s brought to an end a 12-game winning run which spanned all the way back to the beginning of November. Back then, the title race was seen as a three-horse race between City, Liverpool and Chelsea, but the football odds today have the Manchester club as the odds-on victors.
The home defeat to Crystal Palace at the end of October clearly rankled with Guardiola, and from that point on they seemed to click into another gear. Throughout the 12-win run there were some brutal attacking performances — 4-0 against Newcastle United, 7-0 against Leeds United, and 6-3 against Leicester City. This form was redolent of their record title-winning season in 2017-18, where City set new standards in attacking excellence.
There were also matches where they were made to work hard for their victories. Narrow wins over the likes of West Ham, Aston Villa, Brentford and Chelsea were just as valuable as the demolition jobs, and those are the games that win a team the title in the end.
Many will point to the club’s riches as the reason for their ability to produce such a run against the backdrop of challenging logistical circumstances. After all, few teams in world football are blessed with the reserves of talent that City possess, with players able to rotate seamlessly from the bench to the starting 11.
Credit must go to Guardiola, though, for his ability to weave this assortment of superstars into a tapestry of rip-roaring success. Now in his sixth season at the helm, there has been no let-up in standard — every player must be 100% committed to Manchester City, or they’ll be sent on their way. You just have to look at Ferran Torres as an example of a player who had his heart set elsewhere, and was therefore shipped out readily by Guardiola.
There is still a long way to go this season, but it’s looking difficult to see how anyone will be able to stop them. Liverpool are the most likely team to pip them to the title, but that would require a marked rise in performance levels from Jürgen Klopp’s men, and a drop in form among City’s troops.
If Guardiola and co. do manage to see out the title, it will be a fourth Premier League title in five seasons, which is evidence of the transformative effect the Catalan coach has had on this club, whose potential for greatness had not fully been realised before his arrival.
Despite all their success, all the trophies won over the last five years or so, there is still an insatiable hunger for more honours. You only need to look at Guardiola on the touchline in every match and see the fire in his eyes to understand that it is only that present moment that matters, and that they all add up to greatness in the end.
My daughter's first ever football match - Orlando City v Atlanta United, August 2019. Written for Izzy to read when she gets old enough. Vamos Orlando
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