Manchester City sat inside their dressing room at the City Ground in February of the Treble season, watching Arsenal. Huddled around Rico Lewis’ phone, they saw stoppage time drama, Mikel Arteta dancing down the Villa Park touchline after the late win in what felt a decisive blow in the title race.
Immediately up next and with the pressure on, City then battered Nottingham Forest but only drew 1-1. Chris Wood scored Forest’s sole chance, one of City’s own making. Locals set off fireworks next to the stadium in celebration. Pep Guardiola’s had better days.
Manchester City sat inside their dressing room at the City Ground on Sunday, five games to go, watching Arsenal. The victory at Tottenham had been shown on their coach and some continued studying it when they arrived before warming up.
The drama this time was Arsenal withstanding Spurs’ threat of a comeback. Arteta jubilantly jumped on his backroom staff in what felt a defiant moment in the title race.
Immediately up next and with the pressure on, City didn’t run all over Nottingham Forest like 14 months prior. Wood squandered two seemingly unmissable chances in what was, in parts, nip and tuck. But the champions edged over the line. Locals didn’t set off fireworks. City left with fortunes in their own hands.
Funny old beast, football. City – significantly better last year – left the east Midlands four victories from history and with consecutive Premier League clean sheets for only the second time since August. The away end sang about Jurgen Klopp ‘cracking up’ once Erling Haaland had settled the afternoon.
‘If you over-think you are going to be crazy in your head, so relax,’ Haaland said. And that is the City mantra at this stage of seasons. Watch the others by all means but don’t obsess.
Sticking another team’s game on in a changing room seems like the sort of thing Guardiola might have outlawed when he was a younger manager. Now he largely trusts the players to sort themselves out.
That loosening, the insistence on not worrying, is all fine in theory. Very difficult in practice and the heat truly was on as the sun poked through at Forest.
Excitable, Guardiola fidgeted up and down, haunches to standing, seat to touchline, calling over Josko Gvardiol, Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker and Julian Alvarez at various points. Little decisions in-game to stem the tide; it ended relatively comfortably in a way City’s detractors will label all of this oh so boring.
‘We were bad against Chelsea,’ Guardiola said in midweek, framing that particular conversation around fatigue. While complimenting Nuno Espirito Santo’s side, he said of the Forest display: ‘The performance was not really good.’
And then there was something equally interesting. Guardiola made the suggestion that hindsight has played tricks on the standard of performance during the Treble campaign. He doesn’t think this year is actually any different to the others.
Looking at it, he is right. A few dodgy results a third into the campaign and then clicking into gear around Christmas. Not scintillating every week in the way people believe. Grinding stuff out. Grinding along to a 31st consecutive game unbeaten. A club record.
Making that 35 would give them a fair chance of becoming the most dominant team this country has ever seen.