An odd game between Man City and Newcastle was rather neatly summed up by the fact the winning goal came from Nico O’Reilly and Erling Haaland combining with a delicious dinked cross and towering header sent back across the keeper and into the bottom corner in the classic number nine’s style, but with O’Reilly doing the heading and Haaland the dinking.
We are firmly entering ‘how many not how’ stage of the Premier League points-winning process, so City won’t mind too much at this point that a slightly chaotic second half just about went their way.
They cut Arsenal’s lead at the top to two and kept the destination of this year’s Premier League title in their own hands ahead of tomorrow’s narrative-heavy and eagerly awaited North London Derby, a game for which there is now so much anticipation and so many storylines that almost everyone, up to and including the teams involved, appear to have forgotten that it still pits a very sh*t Spurs team against a very good Arsenal one.
But there is no denying that the pressure on Arsenal in that game is huge now after City did the necessary here against a Newcastle team that belied their own patchy recent form – in this competition anyway – and exhausting recent schedule. Arsenal could certainly have no complaints about the effort Newcastle put in to a game that ranks relatively low on a priority list that still features two cup competitions and no longer an outside chance of being dragged into an embarrassing relegation fight.
They could easily have emerged with something and sent another shockwave through a title race that features two worthy but flawed and occasionally unnervingly vulnerable contenders and is so much more fun for it.
That City emerged with all the points here owed much to two men. O’Reilly, whose two high-class finishes proved decisive, and Marc Guehi.
You never can be entirely sure how even obviously very good players will make the step up (or back up) to elite class. Antoine Semenyo has already hit the ground running in his early weeks at City, but Guehi might even be outdoing his fellow January recruit.
Not all teams have the luxury of that kind of decisive January action, of course, but there’s a growing sense that City’s big new year splash could have turned this race in their favour.
Guehi’s was the calmest, coolest head in the second half as City looked to see the game out having failed to kill it off. There’s an awful lot to be said for a player who just calmly selects the right option at all times in the heat of this kind of game at this time of the season. That it was Guehi in possession of that stillness rather than any of his team-mates with far, far more experience of such occasions is to his enormous credit.
We knew he was good; we still underestimated him. He is already a key figure in a City defence that had an awkward evening dealing with Newcastle’s physical presence and, in the first half especially, their counter-attacking threat. Ruben Dias was removed at half-time having come off distinctly second best and picked up a caution in his attempts to keep pace with Anthony Gordon.
This could definitely have gone differently. Newcastle will chunter about a Dan Burn goal disallowed after Dias had pushed him into an offside position when Sandro Tonali’s delicious free-kick was swung in. They may wonder about Bernardo Silva escaping a second booking for a pretty cynical and daft foul early in the second half. Although as ever, any Newcastle grumbles about second yellow cards must be caveated by the fact that, in accordance with the prophecy, it required Joelinton to commit four fouls in quick succession in the closing minutes for him to collect even a single card.
In the sort of title races we’ve grown accustomed to during the City-Liverpool and even the City-Arsenal rivalries of recent vintage, the temptation would be to feel that this City team is a touch too chaotic to get over the line. They are more fun to watch in many ways than some of Pep’s best teams, but they do not have the foot-on-the-throat control of games they once did.
They have shown vulnerability and there were glimpses of it again here. But the key point is that this is not like those 90-points-or-bust title races. There are only two teams left in it with Villa’s brave tilt suffering another significant blow today, yet neither Arsenal nor City currently appear capable of putting together the sight of unblemished run that would knock the other out of the race.
We’ve all heard people this week saying “If City win all their games, they’ll win the league”. That gets wheeled out any time a previous clear leader finds themselves reeled in, but the fact it’s City means it does carry more weight. With City you have proof of concept. We absolutely know that just going right ahead and winning the last 12 games of a Premier League season is the sort of behaviour they might indulge in. They’ve done it before.
But this was not a win to make you think they’re about to do it again now. This was a big win in a big game, and piles pressure on Arsenal at a time when cracks are starting to appear. But this was not a performance that should make Arsenal lose heart or doubt their own credentials.
City avoided it today, but this now suddenly very real title race looks certain to feature plenty more unexpected twists like Arsenal spaffing two-goal leads at one of the worst teams in Premier League history or Haaland and O’Reilly just casually swapping roles for a day.
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