The sign of the rosy times at Manchester City came when Manuel Pellegrini reflected on the maximum 12 points, no goals conceded and 10 scored in the opening four matches. “For a dead man walking, not bad,” he said.
Delivering this with a grin, the Chilean was referring to his apparent state as the City manager after the side’s fall in the second half of last season. The champions were joint top with Chelsea on New Year’s Day. From then on, their title defence folded miserably and time seemed to be ticking down on Pellegrini’s tenure.
On 12 April, City were given an unwonted schooling by Manchester United in a 4-2 derby defeat at Old Trafford. After this, Pellegrini’s men rallied impressively. They won their closing six matches to finish second, then started this campaign with four victories, making it 10 wins on the bounce in the league: a club record that had previously stood since 1912. Best of all, City have done this by offering consistently scintillating play. It means they end August with a perfect return, and lead Chelsea by a yawning eight points.
Factor in the instant success of the £49m-priced Raheem Sterling, whose opener against Watford was his first for City. Factor in Nicolás Otamendi for £32m, Fabian Delph for £8m, Patrick Roberts for £11m and Sunday’s acquisition of Kevin De Bruyne for £51.8m. And factor in the one-year contract extension handed to Pellegrini – he now has a deal until summer 2017 – and it is no surprise the Chilean is so relaxed.
When they had the ball, Watford showed they can ping it around. The problem is that City tend to reclaim and retain it far better than any opposition here, as Chelsea discovered when they were taken apart 3-0.
Sterling’s strike came on 47 minutes. Fernandinho’s followed before the hour. Each derived from the silky play that is making City unstoppable. Now, though, there is the international break. Pellegrini is conscious of the need to retain focus.
“First of all, it’s difficult to compare a moment to a season,” he said when quizzed on why the team are better than in the previous campaign. “Last season we had some good moments, especially in December, when we won all the games and we were top of the league and we qualified for the Champions League when we were almost eliminated, so I think that also we had some good moments. We are playing in exactly the same way as we did last year, trying to score.
“I had particular meetings with a lot of players [in the summer] and I think they are the first to criticise themselves because they know how they can play. I’m sure that none of them – not only the players who were more criticised last season, like Vincent, Fernandinho, Yaya – all the players know that they weren’t in their best performance.
“And that’s why it was important to try and start the season trying to give another face, show another attitude, especially against these kind of teams – teams that are promoted, or last season – teams that were relegated and we lost so many points [against].”
The manager is cautious regarding whether the City juggernaut can continue to thunder on. “It’s what I hope. But football changes so easy so you cannot know what will happen in the next month,” he said. “Now we have the national break. For one side it’s good to stop because we have a lot of injured players. For the other side we are playing very well so we want to continue. But it’s important to understand we are on the correct way and we must take it game by game because football changes so easy.
“Now we must start with the Champions League. This is the only month when we are playing just one game a week. Now we are going to play eight games each month, we must start with Capital One [Cup]. There’s a lot of things that make football change. That’s why it is important to start well and to know why we are playing this way.
“This team is always mentally strong, it is not easy for a team to be under the pressure that we always play. Last season we were very near to be eliminated from Champions League [at the group stage] – we are eight points behind Chelsea and we were [then] in exactly same position [as them] in January so under pressure we always play very well.”
Man of the match Raheem Sterling (Manchester City)
