It was a terrible Saturday evening for the “no title race” and “City are turning this into the Bundesliga” mob.
People spouting that rubbish have really rather irritated Manchester City fans over recent weeks, so there’s a silver lining of sorts to the pulsating and bizarre 3-2 defeat to a Harry Kane-inspired Tottenham.
As Pep Guardiola normally does after such setbacks, he said his team did “good”, noted that they “arrived many times” and observed how difficult it is to play against a deep-lying defence.
It was nevertheless alarming to see City looking so frequently vulnerable to the counter-attack - a relative flaw that has not looked like this much of problem at any time since the Champions League final defeat to Chelsea last year.
There were other parallels to that gutwrenching defeat. City were unpicked by a well-drilled side playing 3-4-3 and with elite capabilities on the break. Also, Guardiola reshuffled his front six - Bernardo Silva starting at false nine against Spurs as opposed to in midfield - in a manner that resulted in his defence being more exposed.
The manner of the loss, with what looked like a salvaged stoppage-time draw becoming a stoppage-time defeat as City’s normally peerless capacity for game management completely deserted them, is something that could have a sapping and lasting effect. The days that follow will be key for Guardiola and his staff in terms of managing morale.
However, this is a seasoned squad of champions and none of the problems that reared their heads on Saturday were anything particularly new. They may not have seen them for a while or in such a dramatic combination but they know how to deal with them.
What is new is the situation in a reignited Premier League title battle with their - to quote Guardiola from earlier this week - “pain in the a**” rivals.
Pep’s City and Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool will define this era of English football and there is palpable excitement that we could be heading to the same place as 2018/19 - a titanic title battle when there was no margin for error.
City might have prevailed by a point on that occasion but I’m sure many of us would rather not take further years off our lives. Cushions of multiple points are actually quite nice.
Liverpool can trim City’s advantage to three if they win their came in hand against Leeds in midweek and this is the new element where title campaigns under Pep are concerned.
In 2017/18, City smashed records and racked up 100 points. Another monster winning run last term also blew the competition apart.
The knife-edge success at Liverpool’s expense saw the Blues memorably come from behind, beating Klopp’s men 2-1 in a rousing January encounter and then gradually chipping away as even draws were costly.
So, City have powered clear of and hauled in Liverpool. What they haven’t done is open up a big advantage only to be pulled back themselves. In 2017/18 and 2020/21, they were up and over the horizon and that was that. They were never chased in any real sense of the word.
They now, to coin phrase, have to “go again”. Just make sure Rodri doesn’t say that because he’ll end up falling over at the base of the midfield and giving away a vital goal.
With a tricky batch of fixtures coming up, it represents a new chance for Guardiola and his players to underline their greatness.
The alternative of losing the title, having been so far ahead, would be reputational damage unforeseeable just a few weeks ago when we were being told there was no such thing as a title race.
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