Manchester City: Much more than just a one off fluke

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City continue pacing forward on their record-breaking, Premier League defining season. But is it a sign of things to come or just a lucky year?

Luck is a funny concept, it isn’t an easily explainable thing, isn’t something people actually believe in, but is also something everyone accepts exists and has a hand in our everyday lives. A statistician would tell you that’s more an odds thing, I suppose.

Every event, no matter how objectively bonkers, has a level of probability of it happening and sometimes, well, even events with a low probability just happen. Indeed, every event, in theory, could happen if given enough time for the circumstances to play themselves out.

In football, in particularly the Premier League, we saw this most acutely with Leicester City’s 2015/2016 title win. Here’s this team tipped for the drop, having flirted with it for some time, who out of nowhere hit on the perfect storm of players overperforming and rivals underwhelming as they throw away the modern rich-man’s rulebook of English top flight success.

Then, just like that, normal service was resumed and Leicester returned to the shores of lower-to-mid table mediocrity with the spectre of relegation’s eye ever-present. A true, footballing flash in the pan.

This year’s Manchester City are a different breed, cut from an entirely different cloth, and the odds have one-by-one come tumbling down along with the records. Rather than receive a smile from Lady Luck, Pep Guardiola brought in little more than a goalkeeper and right back to enhance his starting XI over the summer and, with these pieces in place has absolutely romped to a ridiculous 15 point lead at New Year’s along with remaining unbeaten and throwing in a top flight record 18 game win streak for good measure.

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This has no hallmarks of a mere twist of fate. City, it could be argued, were already so close under Guardiola last term. Holding the most possession, creating the most chances, dominating the games more than any other team in the league. It was clear to all, though none more so than Pep, that a lack of dominance in that last 10% in both boxes was all that was missing.

So many chances came and went last time round, with January arrival Gabriel Jesus only a temporary feature due to injury and long-time striker Sergio Aguero struggling uncharacteristically to convert. At the other end, Claudio Bravo had a mare of a season, letting in 16 of his previous 24 shots on target before he finally got the hook for good. Everywhere else City looked great, but it’s a results business and results are made in both boxes, as Leicester discovered when they trapped that lightning in a bottle.

With the arrival of Ederson, City look a different team. Previous chocolate tin pot defenders like John Stones and the night-and-day improved Nicolas Otamendi are now widely regarded as the best centre-back pairing in the League by a measure.

Fabian Delph, a career midfielder, made the switch to left back and has never looked in the slightest uncomfortable in the role. City have tightened up and the proof of the pudding is in the eating, Ederson has kept the most clean sheets in the League and City have only shipped 13 goals all season, the lowest of any club.

Meanwhile they have scored 64 goals, a sign that things have vastly improved at the other end too. Not that Aguero has gotten back in form, or Jesus is playing more often, but goals are coming more across the park. None from more than one Raheem Sterling, so close to the City door at the end of Manuel Pellegrini’s tenure, now a legend at the Etihad who has single-handedly won the side 9 points, the most by any player, in the League this year.

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The transformation in Sterling, in many ways, is symptomatic of the overall growth of City through Guardiola. Here’s a player low on confidence and lacking in technique, a diamond in the rough who is now one of England’s brightest prospects and an absolute menace in the box. You see, City have not just stumbled across success, they’ve grown into it. Guardiola’s style always was going to take time to grow into, but grow the squad has and with it they’ve found a kind of domination that every other team is unsure how to cope with. Parking the bus seems the best way, to keep the score respectable at least, but doesn’t say much for your chances of victory.

Nonetheless, City go from strength to strength and despite how shocking it may be to watch the League descend into Bundesliga levels of domination, their football continues to be a thrill to watch and a delight to savour. This is no mere stroke of good fortune, this is a standard being set, and Citizens will be lapping it all up unquestionably.

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Whether it truly can become another “Ferguson-era” level of dominance is anyone’s guess, but this Manchester City are no joke, no footballing flash in the pan, they as here and it’s up for the rest to come up with an answer to stop them. At the minute, that appears very difficult indeed.

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