Having steamrolled over another Premier League side at the weekend, top of the table Manchester City are starting to get so good it’s hard to find a way to express it.
It’s a pretty strange thing when you think about it. So many different sports and news media corporations are devoting large swathes of space to talk about Manchester City, yet, simultaneously, aren’t really talking much about Manchester City at all.
Stop me if you haven’t heard this before: “City are scoring goals at a record rate unseen in over 120 years in top flight English football”, “If this continues, City will be hard to stop”, “Pep Guardiola finally finding his feet in the Premier League” etc etc. Don’t you often wonder if some elements of football journalism just copy and paste an article from the last City onslaught and just change the opposition’s name?
To be fair though, it’s a tricky thing to discuss with any sense of nuance. Everyone knows it’s easier to pick holes when the chips are down than to create new superlatives when everything just clicks into place. If this continues, the media tells us, City will be hard to stop.
But what if it does? At what point do we stop and be brave enough to suggest that, maybe, they already are at that level and it would take something really radical for the course to change?
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Ah, but you’ll argue, that this was much the same as Pep’s side last year as well. A strong start, the bookies favourites, the neutrals favourites, the “if this continues, they will be hard to stop” team from the off. Then it all fell apart. At the same number of games played as last season, the wheels had already come off. By game 7, City were shellshocked by a pacey Spurs side that ripped their fragile defence apart, the next game saw a further drop of points with a 1-1 draw against Everton. The latter has happened so far, but the former hasn’t.
That isn’t proof that things could unravel yet again for Guardiola, but that’s where all those record statistics come into play. For everything, including conceding two unlucky goals on Saturday, City are commanding a goal difference of +25 having conceded 4 and scored a whopping 29 so far this season. To compare, by this stage in 2016, the Blues had a goal difference of only +11 having conceded 4 more and scored some 10 less. For so early in the season, that particular improvement can’t be hand-waved away.
Improvements, indeed, have been coming across the board. A microcosm of the season, but already City have boosted their average possession percentage by over 9 and pass accuracy by almost 5. The team just seems to be clicking and nothing is more evident of that than the stunning reality of almost every single outfield City player, but the centre-backs, managing a goal or an assist against Stoke City.
It’s not so much, honestly, that we’ve seen this script with City before and tread cautiously. More, this is the script that has been drafted for years, indeed, since the take-over, and has never really been used as the results haven’t materialised. Sure, City have brought home the title twice in the last five seasons, but rarely have they looked quite so head and shoulders above the pack in doing so as they do now. The Premier League has become so competitive that one expects a tight pack of 5 or more sides at the top until injuries, fixture glut and poor form starts to show in January. It’s all so new, and scary.
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Either which way, Pep Guardiola does indeed seem to be finding his feet in the Premier League. His system, always needing at least a season to take root and refine, already seems to be established in the minds of his players and the effects are there for all to see. The wheels may yet come off for City, and certainly many big challenges yet await them, but right now it’s hard to envisage the same troubles as Pep’s men toiled with at either end plaguing them yet again. Manchester City are looking good, playing good, having fun and who knows? If this continues, they will be hard to stop.