Mikel Arteta was not controversial. Many of them expressed the same opinion, even though it was rare for him to stop Pep Guardiola’s team from scoring in two league games in a season. “This is definitely the best team in the world,” he said.
That is Manchester City’s repute, though not necessarily its status. The stalemate resulted in Guardiola declaring them only “third favorites” to win the title. And if a repeat treble stays in the cards, City reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and entered the title race without beating elite opponents in either competition.
Definitely the best? They were there last yr, beating Arsenal twice in the Premier League, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid in the Champions League. But now Guardiola jokes that he needed to “kill someone” to seek out his way through the low block.
But now could be the best time? City has 4 points from a possible 18 against their closest rivals, the remainder of the top five. They didn’t beat any of them. Last season, they scored 16-of-24 against the top five finishers, winning five times. “Four points in comparison with 16; that’s an enormous difference,” Guardiola said.
Memory, he argued, can play tricks. “You pretend it’s 7-0 every week for six years,” he added. It was not. However, there were plenty of declarations, decisive victories and examples of superiority that depressed the pretenders to the crown. City were not in the habit of starting April without a result like this.
However, City are not as good as they used to be. This was camouflaged by a 23-game unbeaten run, overlooked in the face of the assumption that they would win it all, partially masked by injuries that resulted in the less intimidating lineups Guardiola fielded.
And perhaps it would have been different if John Stones had been able to move between the lines and add another dimension. His small role this season is why they have often lacked the chemistry they displayed last spring. Another absence for Kevin De Bruyne in the first half of the season. The departure of Ilkay Gundogan is a third factor: the former captain feels he will find a solution to every problem, whether as a metronome, creator, goalscorer or talisman of big matches. However, the loss of Riyad Mahrez, who was directly involved in 28 goals last season, deprived the team of another match winner. Between them, Jack Grealish, Jeremy Doku, Matheus Nunes and Mateo Kovacic have scored just 24 goals or assists this year.
If the latter pair were more likely to replace Gundogan than Mahrez, the verdict may be that City, who have done well in trading in recent years, have had their worst season in the transfer market since the purchases of Eliaquim Mangala and Wilfried Bony in 2014-15 , which they spent £200 million making worse.
Only one of their signings, Kovacic, is arguably in their strongest squad. Nunes, on reflection, was paid £50m and received just 44 minutes against the top six this season. Doku is an individualist, but he rarely wins the match. Josko Gvardiol needed two defensive injuries to start against Arsenal.
The theory is that winners should get stronger even when they are the strongest; this isn’t always true – Liverpool didn’t sign any senior players after winning the Champions League in 2019 – and if it’s difficult to improve anything close to perfect, it’s almost impossible to spot another Gundogan because City have paid to get worse.
This does not mean that all of this should be attributed to signatures. Perhaps it’s a consequence of the heights they reached last season, but this year has seen a few dips. Perhaps only Phil Foden has had a much better year; Julian Alvarez may be doing it, thanks in part to amassing a huge number of minutes, but the World Cup winner doesn’t exude class. Rodri and Nathan Ake performed brilliantly again.
The decline may be most noticeable for Grealish, even if the feeling remains that he remains tactically relevant, meaning City are the better team when he plays. However, his lack of goals is a problem when neither Mahrez nor Gundogan are there to compensate.
Meanwhile, blaming Erling Haaland’s goalscoring record could appear excessive as he has missed two months of the season and has only conceded one goal in need of 30 in all competitions. However, this situation is reinforced by days when he goes on a rampage, resembling his five goals against Luton. His Premier League record of 36 goals in a season looks more impressive, but he has currently scored just 4 goals in his last 11 appearances. Against the remainder of the top five, he scored just once.
Because City had a solitary shot on goal against Arsenal, they as an alternative amassed a lot of passes: around 689, 420 greater than the Gunners. However, there was no cut that would turn it right into a goal.
It leaves a niche between their immediate past as treble winners and their present as a team that has no wins against clubs in the Champions League places. between Arteta’s suggestion that there’s a gulf separating them from every other team in the world and Guardiola’s claim that Liverpool and Arsenal have a greater likelihood of winning the title. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. But even when City come out on top, they might be a weaker team than last yr.
Credit : www.independent.co.uk
