So after all the premature declarations that Arsenal and Liverpool lost at home on the same day earlier this month, it turns out we still have a title race after all.
Arsenal have won both of their league games since then, meaning Pep Guardiola’s side will feel the pressure again when they play away to Brighton & Hove Albion on Thursday.
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But if one thing about the modern version of City should have become clear by now, it is that when they go into a game knowing they have no choice but to win, they actually enjoy it.
City have won two Premier League titles thanks to an early season winning streak, but this is the fourth title push where they can feel in their bones that they simply cannot afford to drop points during the run-in. They prevailed in all three previous games.
Manager Guardiola was recently asked if his players raise their level at this time of year. Before the end of the question he had already said “Yes” four times.
“The problem was, after the treble (achieved last June), October and November (of this season),” he said. “I’ve seen (players say) ‘Oh, long season…’ and that’s when they tend not to… they want to try to do it, but they’re not completely, completely focused. It’s normal.”
In late September and early October, City lost consecutive league matches against Wolves and Arsenal. Then, since mid-November, there have been three draws and one defeat in four top-flight matches.
They have not been beaten in regular time since the December 6 defeat by Aston Villa, which puts them in a familiar position: if they win their remaining seven games, they will retain both the title and the FA Cup. Only the quarter-final defeat at penalties against Real Madrid last week took the Champions League out of the equation.
“They like to play with pressure,” Guardiola says of his team. “They know he’s dead or alive.”
Midfielder Rodri actually spoke about the fact that City simply need to put themselves in this position – which in itself requires winning a lot of games – for their title-chase muscle memory to kick in.
“We asked ourselves at the beginning of the season to put ourselves in a situation where we could at least fight until the end, and this is the situation,” Rodri said before leaving for the Spanish national team in late March. “The work is done so far. Now we have to make the final push.”
Rodri aims for the finish line (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
The final push is now well underway and the sight of the finish line seems to act as an extra motivation for the City players, even if tiredness creeps into their limbs and mind.
“One more week,” Guardiola has been saying for some time now. Just like he did last year. And the year before.
He wants another push, then another. In his pre-Brighton press conference on Wednesday, it was no different: “One more week. Tomorrow (Thursday) is the 25th. There is still a month left until the end of the season. Tomorrow is April 25th and on May 25th we will face Manchester United in the FA Cup final.”
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The players have shown the ability to bounce back for another performance in recent days.
It was evident against Chelsea in Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final, when the quality may have been lacking but certainly not the effort despite losing to Real Madrid less than 72 hours earlier, with Guardiola and his players complaining of tiredness, both mental and physics.
Guardiola welcomed their efforts after the Chelsea match, describing them as “legends”, and it is such satisfaction that allows him to be as relaxed as possible, even at the end of the season.
“I said after the last game, against Bournemouth, that the atmosphere in the dressing room is exceptional and that the boys are doing everything, and that’s enough for me,” Guardiola said last spring in a spell of stuttering form.
Back then, with City trailing Arsenal in the title race, Guardiola’s main message to his players was to make sure they were on hand when the league leaders arrived at the Etihad Stadium at the end of April, so that we could beat them that day and then take control. Which, of course, is what happened.
That’s not to say that City will always get the job done, or that Guardiola wouldn’t collapse if his team dropped points. But he is in the position of not being able to ask more from his players.
“We’ll be there until the end, I’m pretty sure, because I know them,” Guardiola said, after the win against Luton Town on 13 April. “Does this mean we will win the Champions League or the Premier League? No, no, I’m not saying that. But we will compete, that’s for sure.”
A lot has changed since that Luton match, not least that setback against Real Madrid, where they gave their all. But before that, Liverpool had lost at home to Crystal Palace and Arsenal had done the same against Villa.
Liverpool players analyze the home defeat against Palace (Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
“Yes, absolutely, they (Liverpool and Arsenal) gave us a chance by losing their games,” Guardiola says. “But we knew what we had to do two weeks ago: win games to have a chance of winning the title. Nothing has changed with respect to that. Nothing has changed.”
There was a significant change that weekend almost two weeks ago. The title is now in City’s hands. If they win all six remaining league matches, they will be champions again.
But the task is the same: they have to win those games, they have the pressure that comes from feeling that they simply cannot afford to drop points.
That doesn’t mean they will win, but they are exactly where they want to be.
(Top photo: MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)