Manchester City are top of the Premier League after edging ahead of Liverpool and Chelsea for the first time in what promises to be a gripping title race.
Saturday's 3-1 win at Watford was the seventh win in succession for Pep Guardiola's side, with some fans sensing the sort of relentless runs that saw City claim glory in 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2020/21 might already be underway.
On the team's weekend Facebook Live, City is Ours editor Dom Farrell was accompanied by social producer Jai Mcintosh to discuss what City sitting on top of the table means for their hopes of retaining the title.
DF: “Obviously City have been playing catch-up since the first week of the season because they somehow managed to lose to the artists formerly known as Nuno Esperito Santo's Tottenham.
“It’s looking good. City have become well known for these runs of stringing together 15, 16 wins over winter. They won two in a row after losing to Palace and people were like, 'the run's on!'.
“Now it’s seven. Things are looking in a really good place at the moment. The same issues are there in terms of there being no striker. But, I still think the pros outweigh the cons.
“There will be other weekends coming up where Chelsea and Liverpool win and City drop points. It’s going to be tight all the way through.
“If it doesn’t, it will be because City have won every game up until February.”
JM: “What’s nice when you compare City and Chelsea is that Chelsea’s players look disjointed, they are struggling with form and injuries. Whereas we were talking about [Raheem] Sterling [being back on form] earlier.
“[Jack] Grealish perhaps finding a new home as a false nine. We look at Bernardo Silva, where he is taking his game to the next level. We’ve spoken about [Joao] Cancelo at length and how good he is.
“These are players who are seven out of 10 consistently every week - Kyle Walker, Ederson, Ruben Dias. These players are impressive. It sort of comes at a nice time.
"I always feel that City look at the fixtures and play eight to 10 games and think, 'yeah, we probably will win all of those'.
DF: “When they won the league in 2018/19, they did lose three on the bounce to Chelsea, Palace and Leicester, which was a bit of a strange one. I saw you guys on the Carefree Chelsea show talking about how December could be a problem for Chelsea.
“I think the opposite is true...this City team think this is our bit of the season now. When they won the league in 17/18, they didn’t lose in any competitions until January.
“They stormed through autumn and winter last season, it was that run that broke the back of it. When they won the league in 2018/19, they won the final fourteen games, starting in January.
“So, they know how to put these runs together. Guardiola says that we take it game by game, that’s how you put together these runs. They will be feeling good at the moment.
“They feel like they’re in their sweet spot. Every season, maybe City do lose some key games around springtime. This feels like City’s part of the season now and they’re in a good place for it.”
Could this be a title-winning run for City? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
