When Manchester City’s manager claimed he would have been sacked by Barcelona or Bayern by now, it was hard to know whether he was bragging, complaining or merely being disingenuous“It’s not done, but we are nearly there,” Pep Guardiola said after Manchester City’s last home win of the season. “It’s in our hands to finish third. We are going to play Watford and win the game. [Even if we lose] Arsenal will have to score five or six against Everton to get past us.”Most of the season’s issues have been settled as the final weekend approaches, there will be no last day relegation escapes and the top and runners-up spots have been known for a while. There is mild interest...
Latest derby was a stark reminder that the big beasts of the north-west are currently fighting over scraps while the London clubs watch from aboveAll those complaining that Thursday’s Manchester derby was not a patch on the previous week’s el clásico completely miss the point. In terms of quality the Manchester derby is currently no better than the Merseyside version and it is rapidly becoming as irrelevant. If the Premier League does have a derby to stand comparison with the best Spain can offer, at the moment it would have to be the London rivalry between Chelsea and Spurs, whose FA Cup semi-final was both an entertaining game and, as Antonio Conte said, a great advert for English football. Related:...
Manuel Pellegrini’s old players, a collection Guardiola has spent most of the season trying to move on from, were to the fore with the endgame on the lineAt times during a frazzled, occasionally surly first season Pep Guardiola has looked a little culture-shocked, a man chafing at the edge of things. It has been an uncomfortable embrace, with a sense of a man half-in half-out of the door, pretending to like the tea, smiling politely, but still vaguely scandalised by the raggedness, the physicality, the lack of order.Well, this was a bit more like it. On a tight, bruising night at the Etihad Stadium, with the season’s endgame on the line, Guardiola oversaw what must be the least Pep-ish Manchester...
The derby proved a fine night for the Manchester sides in the race for the Champions League, but it is also abundantly clear where both teams need to reinforce before next seasonThis draw suits Manchester City and Manchester United as it moved them a point closer to Liverpool and will allow each to overtake Jürgen Klopp’s side in the race for a Champions League berth if they win their game in hand. José Mourinho had said: “Our mentality now is to try to forget what is waiting for us and concentrate on this game. I don’t deny the Europa League is our main target but we have to forget about it.” This was a reference to the fact that winning...
A derby draw could suit both teams but Mourinho is unbeaten in the league since October and would clearly love to make life even more miserable for GuardiolaThe race is not always to the swift, according to Ecclesiastes, although as Damon Runyon and thousands of others subsequently pointed out, that is never the way to bet.Picking the winners and losers in this season’s title and top-four race has been an unusually fraught business, mainly because Chelsea dropped so far out of the running last time out. Related: Pep Guardiola needs time to prove naysayers wrong at Manchester City | Jacob Steinberg Related: Wayne Rooney at risk of going out at Old Trafford with a whimper | Daniel Taylor Continue reading...