Yet another defeat to pacy counterattackers raises tantalising questions over Manchester City’s European tie with PSGAnd so the quadruple remains out of reach for another season. Perhaps Pep Guardiola is right to banish talk of it: when goals are set so high, even an extraordinary season could feel like failure. And so it lingers, forever on the edge of perception, as the Double did for Liverpool for much of the 70s and 80s, something that feels often in their grasp and yet keeps on eluding them.For a long time, the Double was rare enough to be an almost mystical quest. Growing up in the 80s, the sides who had achieved it felt vaguely otherworldly, to be spoken of in hushed...
His last Champions League final was in 2011, but Manchester City have it in them if the manager finds the right combinationsAs a basic rule, the best TV sitcoms tend to centre on a character stuck in their surroundings; and trapped, by extension, in their unfulfilled desires.The office manager who wants to be a comedian but doesn’t realise he’s not funny. The ennui-ridden cafe owner who falls in love with a priest and can’t escape her family. Plus, of course, the genius-level football coach in the high fashion yak-weave hoodie who can’t stop trying to win the Champions League, but keeps electing an ultimately self-destructive inverted-diamond false wingback system in the key knockout game against Dinamo Plovdiv. Related: Liverpool's slump:...
In circumstances demanding a less energetic approach, the manager has transformed his side’s Premier League prospects Ominously, Manchester City have eased towards the front of the title race. They went into the weekend third, just four points behind the Premier League leaders, Manchester United, with a game in hand. Their next five league games are against sides in the bottom half and Aston Villa. Had Liverpool beaten them on 8 November, rather than drawing 1-1, their lead over City would have been eight points. As it is, by the time City face Liverpool on 6 February, there’s a good chance they will be top of the table. That, really, is a triumph of coaching.It’s a triumph of resources as well...
Guardiola planned to build a new cathedral on a Dias-Laporte defence but Stones has emerged as key to team’s resurgenceFootball feels at times almost wilfully contrarian, as though it delights in confounding those who try to plot a rational course through it. You can plan and plan and plan. You can have a manager who is famous for his attention to detail. You can study all the data, watch all the videos, think and plot and cogitate, formulate your grand strategy, then it turns out the answer all along was John Stones.Manchester City needed a right-sided central defender, everybody said. They had Aymeric Laporte, who was probably alongside Virgil van Dijk the best central defender in the league, but he...
Tottenham suffocated a possession-hungry Manchester City in a fascinating tactical contest between two old foesYou know, this might just catch on. For an hour at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the white shirts of Spurs and the all-blacks of Manchester City played out a game of such familiar contrasts, possession v non-possession, that it felt like watching a sporting remake from the Legends Tours, Tyson v Holyfield or Benn v Eubank. Related: Son and Lo Celso take Tottenham top with win over Manchester City Related: No amount of Marcelo Bielsa’s genius can save Leeds from a bumpy ride | Jonathan Wilson Continue reading...