Pep Guardiola generally keeps the debriefings short and sharp. In the Manchester City dressing room on Sunday evening, he told them not to worry. Freshen up and be ready for Aston Villa in three days.
They’re coming thick and fast now. Guardiola is annoyed at the scheduling and complains that the broadcasters are not doing much to help them in the European matches, but knows this is a by-product of being so consistently strong.
City have been here before, with niggling injuries disrupting flow at key moments, and it will undoubtedly happen again – even if the manager has left after a brilliant spell that will be effectively impossible for the next player to emulate.
But for now, Guardiola’s message is the same. He is not angry with his players, even lecturing Jack Grealish on the pitch after Sunday’s dull goalless draw against Arsenal.
He says he can “recognize” them, which in his language is a team following the plan. They don’t play badly.
Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City squad will be familiar with the position they find themselves in
City will have to overcome a tough schedule to win the league after drawing with Arsenal
Your browser does not support iframes.
Yet it is difficult to escape comparisons. Last year, teams – including Arsenal – were blown away at the Etihad Stadium.
Hostile, dirty, home to an already exceptional team that smells of history. And while City are performing reasonably well, with a run of 23 games unbeaten in all competitions since early December, there is a sense of wanting more.
There is a sense that there is more to them and if that proves to be the case, City still have a great chance to do something special again. Yet they wait for the absolute maximum, the certainty of Erling Haaland’s goals or the divine intervention of Kevin De Bruyne.
The expectation was that things would click well at some point, and the past seven years have provided proof of that. Maybe at any other club the long term of not losing would be best. Not here, with the peaks significantly higher than anyone else’s.
There will be frustration in that dressing room, questions will be asked about why the half-chances aren’t flying in, why the early blitzes aren’t happening as often.
It’s fun to analyze. Three points is the gap with Liverpool with nine games to play. A Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid is coming up. Chelsea in the last four of the FA Cup. Normally this can give the feeling that it has all been written off too late.
So why not? It is about expectations and the burden of their recent past and the memories created during the flight to Istanbul.
“Because we have won five titles in six years, (you think) you have to win by being ten points ahead,” Guardiola said. “That’s not possible, because the other teams are really good.”
It is clear that Man City is still waiting for the absolute maximum: the certainty of Erling Haaland’s goals or the divine intervention of Kevin De Bruyne.
At times it looked like Man City might have missed the quality of Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez in their mini-transition era
City will face Spanish giants Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League
And it’s about who they’re missing in what has become a mini-transition in the post-Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez era.
Last year this week both started the 4-1 win over Liverpool. Gundogan scored the important third goal. Mahrez assisted the second for De Bruyne. These are huge characters from a Treble team, characters who went the extra mile on their own and won games when Haaland and De Bruyne did not.
Think of the FA Cup final when Gundogan got both, or the semi-final when Mahrez departed with a hat-trick, albeit against Championship opposition. Or when Gundogan inspired that dramatic last-day comeback against Villa, or Mahrez’s only goal at Chelsea last January, when Arsenal threatened to run away with the competition in what was a modest season for him.
These are not easy people to replace. They are not the reason why City failed to beat an Arsenal team that was meant to suffocate, but the loss of both has inevitably placed an additional burden on others. It is one facet of a larger whole surrounding City. But they are still there, still with a scream.
