Considering the club\u2019s unprecedented success and their manager\u2019s profound rewriting of the way football is played in this country it is quite extraordinary that throughout, Pep Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City have never moved us.<\/p>\n
Maybe that is always the way with serial winners. <\/p>\n
Jealousy is a bitter, colourless feeling and so too is the boredom that comes from predictable title battles and the same end result. <\/p>\n
And yet Manchester United were despised in the 1990s and 2000s and are now looked back on with great fondness for some of the football they played. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to shake the feeling that Man City\u2019s time at the top is unique in exciting very little feeling either way.<\/p>\n
The high points tallies and the ultra-efficient possession-dominant football is of course a big part of that, as is their nation-state ownership, combining to provide a triple layer of anti-romance, while an absence of Man City cheerleaders in the pundit class is probably a factor, too. <\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s time. A decade from now people may start feeling wistful about Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva, about Rodri<\/a> and Erling Haaland<\/a>. <\/p>\n Certainly only when Guardiola is gone will people truly begin to comprehend the scale of his one-man revolution, his transformational impact on Premier League football from tactics to fashion.<\/p>\n Until then, Man City will continue to be seen as dull; too robotic, clinical, and well run for anyone to really care about their success. Ironically, that means their demise is often wrongly foretold.<\/p>\n Every year Man City are relatively slow starters and every year we forget how they gradually move through the gears. Thanks to Guardiola\u2019s squad rotation and his ability to coach a restful game when winning, City are always fresher and sharper than everyone else in spring. <\/p>\n But they don\u2019t stir the soul and so, year after year, we begin to write them off.<\/p>\n This year is no different, but in reality Arsenal\u2019s lead at the top is far more precarious than it looks. For evidence, just look at where Man City are: second, and only six points behind, despite having been utterly forgettable in every single Premier League appearance so far. <\/p>\n Nothing much has happened beyond Haaland\u2019s usual fast start, and yet with Rayan Ait-Nouri<\/a> still to come in, Jeremy Doku<\/a> blossoming, Rayan Cherki<\/a> back from injury with two assists at the weekend, and City consistently winning without Rodri, Guardiola\u2019s side are in just as advantageous a position as they usually are at the start of November. <\/p>\n And they usually win the league.<\/p>\n Guardiola is supposedly in a transitional year, having continued to nudge his players towards a more direct game so far this season. <\/p>\n But for a team still working things out, it should alarm Arsenal supporters that Man City have only dropped points at Villa Park, the Amex, the Emirates, and at home to Tottenham; four fixtures Guardiola often struggles to win even in 90+ points seasons.<\/p>\n In the 12 matches in all competitions since the beginning of September Man City have won 10, dropping points only at Villa<\/a> and at Arsenal<\/a>. That is par for Guardiola in a title-winning season.<\/p>\n Others might not be taking notice, but Guardiola will be feeling quietly confident with the unremarkable way City are winning matches and the lack of fuss being made about them. <\/p>\n This is what he does. This, though it might not feel like it, is exactly what a Man City title-winning campaign looks like.<\/p>\n They face a stronger, deeper, and more gifted Arsenal side than Mikel Arteta has ever had and yet in a straight fight with Guardiola\u2019s Man City you would still expect the six-time winner to have the edge in the run-in.<\/p>\n Nevertheless most pundits seem to believe Arsenal won\u2019t get a serious challenge from Man City. <\/p>\n But, as ever, they just aren\u2019t paying enough attention to English football\u2019s invisible winning machine. <\/p>\n Safer gambling<\/p>\n We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.<\/p>\n If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline \/ GamCare<\/a> on 0808 8020 133.<\/p>\n Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org<\/a> and gamblingtherapy.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Considering the club\u2019s unprecedented success and their manager\u2019s profound rewriting of the way football is played in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-269638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}