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A Refocused Man City

I was at the Manchester City-Manchester United game last weekend and the important thing was that United played well, and they deserved to win that game. When you look at what Manchester United have gone on to do, overall, they have been looking very good. 

But from City’s perspective, it was important because it showed that they weren’t invincible. They bounced back immediately with that 5-2 win over Southampton and the 3-0 win against Fulham. You add the Champions League win to that and what you see is a refocused Manchester City. What I thought was very interesting was Pep Guardiola talking about the ‘quadruple’ and his reference to this Manchester City side having won none of it, and therefore they have to earn the right, they have to win the games to win Champions League and to be ‘quadruple’ winners. His focus is always is always the next game  and one can see that in the performances. What has been great to watch is how he has used his players — Auguero starting against Fulham — it was good that he scored, however he didn’t do much else in the game and then he hasn’t a part of the game against Borussia Mönchengladbach. Pep has been using his players in a way that he is getting them ready to ascent to the ‘quadruple’ even though he will only talk about the next game. They look like the real deal at the moment. 

When you look at the Champions League, two teams are looking dangerous right now — Dortmund and Tuschel’s Chelsea. When I saw how they are playing, it is daunting for the rest of the Premier League. I mean, they are not going to win the league this season of course, but when you look at their performances, when you look at how they are giving away very few chances, they are rotating the squad — they are a mirror in so many ways of what Pep Guardiola is doing with Manchester City.  

With Manchester United playing well and Manchester City far ahead, the race for the other two in the top four is between Leicester, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool at the moment with Tottenham not far behind. There is compelling competition for those top four spots. 

 United won a good game against West Ham — who were criticized for playing a very defensive game. But that wasn’t surprising to me. No team wants to go and get beat easily and West Ham put in, what I would consider in most circumstances an okay performance. It means they are still in touch with the top four-top five for a European Champions League qualification spot. It also means they haven’t been embarrassed with a heavy defeat to lower confidence. 

The good thing for Liverpool is that they have in fact won a couple of games this week – one in the Premier League and one in the Champions League. And I’d like to think that maybe this is where the corner turns and they can regain their lost form. Jurgen Klopp was happy with the victories but I still think he has a lot to do to get Liverpool in that top four. However, with Jota back from injury — the onus of scoring doesn’t solely depend on Salah and this return can hopefully spark Liverpool’s turn to victorious ways. 

In Liverpool’s game against the Wolves, it was a close shave for Wolves goalkeeper Rui Patricio and a lot of questions were asked about the delayed off-side signal from the linesman and if that had any impact on his injury. Mo Salah went straight through and Conor Coady had that collision with Patricio — an absolutely ugly collision that caused a 15-minute delay. It wouldn’t have happened if the linesman had signaled straight away but I also think it is an indication of how dangerous football can be at times. It was a freak accident and I have been in similar situations myself where I have collided with defenders, attackers in innocuous situations where you are so focused on the ball that it shouldn’t be looked at as a problem with how the referees or assistants are managing the game. These incidents can happen in normal football but fortunately they are rare. 

The bottom of the table is also getting exciting and that is something that usually happen towards the latter part of the season. Fulham are trying to defy everybody by giving themselves a chance. Two months ago, I had written Fulham, West Brom and Sheffield United them off but Fulham are trying and creating an opportunity. But there’s one team — Southampton, who at the moment are on the worst run that one could imagine. For a side that want to stay in the Premier League, they have been losing game after game after game. 

With their form at the moment, they are in in grave danger of becoming the outsiders to give Fulham the unthinkable escape route. 

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