Everything has fallen into place so neatly for Manchester City during the early stages of the season there was a question for their captain, Vincent Kompany, in the padded leather seats of their training ground on Monday about whether Chelsea could even be considered a threat any more. The leaves have not started to fall yet, the clocks do not go back for six weeks and there are seven-eighths of the season to play, yet there is already an assumption Manuel Pellegrini’s team are capable of turning the Premier League into a procession.
They certainly exude the confident air of a team who have quickly shaken off last season’s disappointments and, even if it is still too early to make definitive judgments, it would be a considerable surprise if their position at the top of the table turned out to be a deception. City’s immaculate record after five matches means they have broken a 103-year-old club record with 10 straight league wins, going back to the end of last season. They have not conceded a goal in nine hours and 26 minutes of play and, with that kind of backdrop, their Champions League group has taken on a different complexion since the draw was made.
City, once again, were given the worst draw of all the English clubs, but none of their opponents, starting with Juventus on Tuesday, are playing strongly. Juventus, last season’s finalists, have not won a game in Serie A so far. Sevilla are the same in La Liga while Borussia Mönchengladbach have lost their opening four matches and are bottom of the Bundesliga. Together, City’s opponents have played 10 matches without a victory, in stark contrast to the form shown by Pellegrini’s men. As Kompany said: “If we are not confident, after what we have done so far, we will never be confident.”
Equally, it is never easy to be sure what to expect of City when the Champions League anthem plays on their side of Manchester. It is usually to the accompaniment of boos and whistles from supporters who begrudge the way Uefa’s financial fair play system stalled the club’s momentum. There have been disappointingly low crowds and, if there is one statistic that probably sums up City’s experiences in this competition, it is that they have won only three out of their last 11 Champions League home games.
“Definitely, we have not handled most of our games in the Champions League well,” Kompany said. “It is quite simple. People have been saying it for the last three or four years. And as long as we don’t perform and show our quality in the Champions League, as we have in the Premier League, there will always be something left behind that leaves us unsatisfied.”
There are mitigating circumstances in that City have gone out over the last two seasons to Barcelona in the last 16, but it has still been a disappointing return and Kompany’s verdict, one imagined, would have struck a chord with the club’s owners in Abu Dhabi, as well as the Belgian’s colleagues in the dressing room. Kompany described the team as “disappointed and frustrated from many seasons” and, reflecting on those difficulties, he warned it may be some time before City can class themselves among the elite.
“Even in the group stages we have struggled quite a few times,” he said. “Certainly last season against CSKA Moscow [losing 2-1 at home] was disappointing. For the last five years since we have been in the Champions League it has been Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and that is it. They were the three strongest teams by miles and every other team has been playing catch-up.
“Those teams are not just the best because they have a better badge or better colours; they are the best because they have been working on the squad for many years, they have their academies putting talented players into the first team and they have always attracted the best players as well. Even if we manage to beat them, I think they are still the three strongest teams. For us to close the gap it will take time and hard work over years.”
Kompany said he wanted City to “take that anger, that desire, that energy into this game”. He added: “It is so important we have to be better this time. It cannot be what it was in the previous years. Whatever happened last season needs to be used as a lesson. We have a good team and we should always believe in ourselves. That is a basic of what this squad needs to do, especially in the Champions League.”
At times, there has been the impression that City have a mental block when it comes to Europe and that they are still waiting, perhaps, for the one conclusive performance on their own ground to feel like they belong. On that front, their first game in Group D represents another test of their nerve. Juventus’s poor start to the season should not disguise the fact they finished the last one in May celebrating their fourth Scudetto in a row.
Pellegrini will be without Sergio Agüero, still feeling the effects of his knee injury suffered in Saturday’s win at Crystal Palace. Fernandinho and Samir Nasri have slight injury problems but David Silva and Raheem Sterling are available again.
“It is another year and another season full of hope,” Kompany said. But City want a different outcome this time.
