It’s beginning to look a lot like City’s.
The greatest trick Pep Guardiola has pulled in England has been to turn the new Manchester City into the old Manchester United. They were at it again on Sunday. Perhaps the only surprise was that Raheem Sterling wasn’t the hero this time.
Against a stubborn, well-drilled West Ham, Guardiola’s golden boy Sterling took a backseat as David Silva popped up with the match-winning contribution. With the game poised at 1-1, the Spaniard acrobatically met Kevin De Bruyne’s cross to the far post, turning it past Adrian to keep the City train rolling.
It means that in the last week, City have scored winners in the 83rd, 84th and 96th minute. Their goal-laden performances earlier in the season may have established them as feared front-runners, but the recent late, late shows echoing Ferguson’s United have made them look like champions in the making.
Of course, it’s easy to overlook the excellent work Jose Mourinho’s United are doing. They are 11 points better off than at this stage last season and there were certainly flickers of ‘the United way’ for a small portion of the win at Arsenal on Saturday: rapid, incisive attacks with clinical finishing to boot.
United have exploded out of the blocks in recent games, with three goals before half-time in the win at Watford, and another two at Arsenal. City, though, in a strangely subdued shadow of that autumnal juggernaut, have stuttered out of the gates. They have huffed and puffed. They have been frustrated. They have even started leaking goals. Most importantly, though: they have still ground out wins.
The old maxim is that the Premier League title race is a marathon, not a sprint. City have threatened to blow the chasing pack away at times this season but, in the last three games, it’s very much been a case of getting it done as opposed to doing it beautifully. Having to dig deep in games has become the prevailing narrative, but they’re refusing to loosen their grip at the summit.
Alex Ferguson’s United were just like that, particularly in the late 90s and early 00s. A force of imperishable self-belief, late winners were synonymous with Fergie’s United. Now, City are the Premier League’s specialists in last-gasp heroics.
It has added a different dimension to Guardiola’s side. As impressive as they looked swatting teams away in the opening weeks of the season, it’s been their response to going behind in potential banana skin games that has most endorsed their title credentials.
Their response to going behind to Huddersfield last week was to score from a penalty two minutes later. They didn’t go behind against Southampton but Oriol Romeu’s equaliser certainly challenged their mettle. Still, they responded commendably, Sterling curling a sumptuous winner in right at the death to keep his team’s eight-point lead in tact.
There was further adversity against West Ham, led by an old foe in David Moyes. Angelo Ogbonna’s headed opener wasn’t in the script, but Pep rallied his troops at half-time and they stepped up to the mark, first through Nicolas Otamendi, then through Silva. They gained four points after trailing to Bournemouth and Everton in August, but it’s been this last week when comparisons to the United of yesteryear have become inescapable. A result in City’s favour continues to look inevitable, even when they go behind.
It leaves this weekend’s Manchester derby fascinatingly poised. United have discovered a swagger in recent weeks, but they’ll be facing a City side determined not to tempt fate once more. Even if they do flirt with defeat at Old Trafford on Sunday, we know now just how much character they have to compliment their natural attacking flair. That marriage of the technical and mental side of the game makes it difficult to imagine the title going anywhere but the blue half of Manchester come May.
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