My Premier League Contender Article Is Broken
I wrote an article two to three weeks ago about the five teams I saw as legitimate title contenders in the English Premier League. Those teams were Manchester United, Tottenham, Liverpool, Leicester City, and Manchester City. Since writing that article, that whole list has lost all of its meaning and I should just delete it to save myself any further embarrassment.
Manchester City is absolutely running away with the title this year. The form that City has been on for the past two months is unlike any we have seen in a very long time. To put that in context, City has now won eighteen straight matches. In their last twenty-five matches, City has a record of 22-3-0. That means in their last quarter century’s worth of games, they have dropped a total of six points. The level that City is playing at is some of the best of all time. It will never get that credit due to the circumstances of this season. That critique is probably fair as teams like Liverpool are practically missing half of their starting squad due to a host of factors. However, Man City has begun to go on a tear that leaves them ten points clear of second-place Manchester United and third-place Leicester City.
The reasons for City’s sterling level of play right now are mostly down to what you would expect. Their stars are performing like they are stars. Kevin de Bruyne continues to prove that he is probably the best midfielder in the world. Raheem Sterling is not only a clinical finisher but maybe the second-best creator on the team behind only de Bruyne. Ilkay Gundogan refuses to let anyone forget about him as he is scoring at an incredible rate currently. Ederson is one of the best goalkeepers in the world and he continues to prove it, having twelve clean sheets in this current stretch of eighteen wins. He’s got eighteen clean sheets if we expand that out to the last twenty-five games. Of course, a clean sheet is a team effort and hinges greatly on the backline that City throws out there weekly. The entire backline is filled with guys every team wishes they could have. John Stones and Aymeric Laporte are anchoring the middle of that defense and playing some of the best soccer in their lives. All the while, Joao Cancelo, and Oleksandr Zinchenko shut down the outside lanes with ease.
From top to bottom this team is filled with superstars that play like their asses are on fire. They swarm to the ball like locusts no matter who they play and strike with such a clinical precision it seems almost impossible to stop. There’s a crazy stat I heard somewhere that City has only lost one or two games when Phil Foden scores. I don’t know how to verify this but it feels true. Foden is another guy playing out of his mind on this current run.
We haven’t even talked about the bench chuck full of super subs. Ferran Torres and Riyad Mahrez are the types of players that start in sixteen sides across the Premier League. Oh, and don’t forget Sergio Aguero was injured for a while and they have been working on slowly bringing him back into the fold. Arguably their best pure scorer has been out for the vast majority of the season, making only five appearances for the team. Three of those came from substitution.
All of this rambling about the unfortunate brilliance of Manchester City is all just because they are better than everybody else in the League. As a matter of fact, with Bayern Munich stumbling a time or two as of late, City has been the best soccer team in the entire world. The League is theirs to lose. The FA Cup is theirs to lose. The Champions League is theirs to lose. Pep Guardiola is consistently out scheming his oppositions and getting every last drop of skill out of his players in a way that no other manager in the world is doing. It is City’s world right now. We are all just living in it. May they have mercy on our souls and not win the league in too embarrassing a fashion.