There was a touch of wryness in Manuel Pellegrini’s “miracle” description of Manchester City’s reeling in of Chelsea, who three weeks ago had led the Premier League champions by nine points.
That was on 29 November and though City had a game in hand at that point there was a real prospect of José Mourinho’s team making this season’s title tilt a procession. Instead, following this canter of a 3-0 win over Crystal Palace City are now level on 39 points with Chelsea, separated by a goal difference of one, with the west London club travelling to Stoke City on Monday evening.
The manager was posed the question of how seriously Chelsea will take City’s championship defence and, given the chance to make a point to the team’s critics, Pellegrini did it with a smile: “I don’t know what Chelsea will think. I know three weeks ago we were nine points behind and close to elimination from the Champions League and we were a team that depends just on Sergio Agüero. So I think that maybe this is a miracle. But the miracle has a name – that is work.”
This was, indeed, a victory without the lethal Argentinian striker, who struck 19 times in 21 appearances before suffering the knee injury that rules him out until next month. It was also a win with no frontline goalscorer at all, as Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic are nursing problems and the 18-year-old José Ángel Pozo was ill.
Instead, Pellegrini fielded James Milner as a kind of false No9, asked by the Chilean to create space for David Silva, Yaya Touré and their other midfield cohorts to run into and score.
It worked like a dream. Silva, who does not score quite enough for such a sublime talent, finished with two – on 49 and 61 minutes – while Touré added his seventh of the campaign, a late rocket after Milner’s fine surge along the left.
Pellegrini said: “If you review what we did last season, a lot of goals were scored by midfielders and full-backs. We have a style of play where we involve all of the players in attacking and after that we also try to have all the players defending. It’s not easy to play without a striker but I assure you we had a whole week to prepare where we practised at creating the space, knowing Crystal Palace were a difficult team.”
Despite the success of the false No9 shape, the Chilean is not keen to use it again soon. “I don’t think it’s a system we’ll adopt in the future,” he said. “This team works very hard during the week so we can change our style of play. Normally it is better for me to play with one striker or maybe two strikers in some moments. So it’s important to have the capacity to change the style of play in one week.”
Asked if there was any coincidence that City’s run of eight victories on the bounce included the catalyst of an unexpected win over Bayern Munich , much like last season’s similar sequence (taking in a 3-2 victory in Bavaria last December), Pellegrini again pulled up the questioner.
“Why is it ‘unexpected’? Bayern Munich both years was important for us because it proves we can also play really well in the Champions League,” he said. “We try to win as many points as we can in the Premier League because, I repeat, both competitions have the same importance for us. It’s very important to do well in the Champions League but not leaving the Premier League out – the possibility to win the title.”
Although Neil Warnock had a fair case when describing James McArthur’s disallowed goal for offside as a disgraceful decision – it came at 2-0 – City were worthy victors.
City’s surge up the table to seriously challenge Chelsea comes despite the club working within a maximum £49m net transfer spend imposed by Uefa due to financial fair play irregularities, which Pellegrini admits is a hindrance. “When you have restrictions you give a lot of advantage to other teams. I think if you want to be a competitive team you cannot give an advantage to other teams,” he said.
Jovetic, who has a hamstring complaint, and Vincent Kompany, the City captain, who has muscular problems, will be assessed before their side’s Boxing Day trip to West Bromwich Albion.
“We will see during the week whether they can be fit for Friday,” said Pellegrini. Of Kompany, he added: “It’s very difficult to be absolutely out of the problem with muscle injuries. He’ll try to play again as soon as he can. But the player and me will have the last word to see if he can.”
Man of the match David Silva (Manchester City)
