Why Manchester City’s 16-game winning streak is even better than you think
Let’s start with what is indisputable: Pep Guardiola has turned Manchester City back into the best team in England.
Through the flames of the dumpster fire that is Liverpool’s title defence, City have marched to the summit like a team of indestructible terminators.
Seven points clear and with a game in hand, only a monumental collapse can now endanger their third Premier League crown in four years.
But consider this for a moment: City’s record-breaking form should be even more celebrated in the context of this unusual season.
Their 16 wins in a row, an English record extended by Saturday’s 3-0 stroll past a zombie Tottenham team, is bucking more than one trend.
First, City’s consistency stands out even more vibrantly in a Premier League campaign widely noted for its unpredictability.
Second, it is also at odds with the pattern in most of Europe’s other top leagues, where hegemonic clubs have seen their iron grips on silverware loosened.
Why City’s form stands out in Europe
In France, super-rich Paris Saint-Germain, a team with four domestic quadruples in the last six years, trail financially stricken Lille.
Lille have been hugely impressive by their own standards but have been far from unstoppable, with seven games their longest winning streak.
In Italy, Juventus have monopolised the Serie A title since 2012 yet lie fourth, behind both Milan clubs and Roma.
Leaders Inter have not strung more than five wins together so far.
And in Spain neither of the two traditional superpowers, Real Madrid and Barcelona, are top.
Leading LaLiga are Atletico Madrid whose longest run of victories is also five.
Simply put, neither the current leaders nor those who normally walk the title in Europe’s main leagues have come close to a run like City’s.
Pep’s Man City 2.0
What is also remarkable is that Guardiola has engineered this surge while remoulding the team into a kind of Pep’s City 2.0.
Sergio Aguero has barely played and Kevin De Bruyne has been absent more recently, but the changes run much deeper.
Of Guardiola’s six most-used outfield players in 2018-19, their last title-winning season, only one – Raheem Sterling – ranks among the top six this term.
Ruben Dias and Rodri have bolstered the rearguard, while Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and right-back/midfielder Joao Cancelo have sharpened City’s death-by-a-thousand cuts approach.
All this has of course reignited talk of this, at last, being the year of Guardiola’s City in the Champions League.
If last season is anything to go by – and it is the closest thing to this bizarre campaign – then the omens are promising.
A year before City embarked on their current run, Bayern Munich did something similar after appointing Hansi Flick as head coach.
They won 33 of the next 36 games, including 21 in a row in all competitions, culminating in the Champions League final against PSG.
As City’s highly mobile, striker-less team are showing twice weekly, it is all about timing your run.