With Manchester City confirmed English Premier League champions, William Kasoba looks back at the key moments in their march to success.
Over the weekend, Manchester City sealed the Premier League title off the field with five games still to play after Manchester United’s shock 1-0 loss to relegation battlers West Bromwich Albion on Sunday. That City won the title in that manner was a perfect reflection of how their season turned out; a story of their excellence but also a triumph owed to the missteps by their closest rivals. Here are the moments on which City’s season turned.
Sadio Mane’s red card at the Etihad
Manchester City did not make the most convincing of starts to the season; leaving it late at Brighton in their opener, before drawing at home to Everton to immediately fall behind Manchester United on the table. A last-gasp winner was required to overcome Bournemouth away, so with Liverpool visiting town next, City and in particular, Pep Guardiola’s tiki-taka was expected to meet with its stiffest examination from Jurgen Klopp’s gegenpress. It didn’t quite turn out that way though, as a slightly harsh red card for a Sadio Mane challenge on the City goalkeeper Ederson in the 21st minute ended the game as a contest and City, leading 1-0 at the time, went on to claim a 5-0 win. The football fraternity would be made to wait until the second round to find out the kind of damage Liverpool can inflict on a tiki-taka team that is careless enough to play a high line against an attack featuring Mo Salah, Roberto Firimino and Mane.
Chelsea given a lesson at the Bridge
Three match days after conquering Liverpool, City had their next big test—against champions Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Keep in mind that Chelsea had done the double over City en route to winning the title in Antonio Conte’s first season in England. What befell Chelsea few of their fans will forget quickly. For the entire 90 minutes, the hosts were taken to footballing school and Kevin De Bruyne’s late winner only served to give the visitor’s the stamp of authority their performance had exuded all evening. It was a 1-0 score line which completely disguised the absolute control City had enjoyed. That performance, though, was the most convincing argument to that point that Pep’s football could win in England.
Three 2-1 comebacks in eight days
After City’s impressive start to the season, many teams began to adopt a more cautious approach when playing Pep’s artists. Counterattack, it appeared, was the only way. In the eight days between November 26 and December 3 2017, three teams nearly pulled it off. First, Huddersfield Town led the Cityzens only to have their hearts broken with five minutes left. Three days later, Southampton tried but failed with a similar plot as Raheem Sterling’s 96th minute winner sank the Saints. West Ham would be next in line, and they too led City before the game was overturned at the death. What could have been two losses and a draw ended up being eight points earned. In that same period, title rivals Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham all dropped points at least once.
Pogba sees red just before the derby
Fresh from a long injury layoff, Manchester United talisman Paul Pogba had returned just in time for the derby, it appeared. In his first game back he showed United what they had missed as he starred in a 3-1 swatting of Arsenal. Then he got sent off. Exactly eight days to the derby at home to Manchester City. It was a terrible blow for a United lying eight points behind the leaders. Lose and they would fall 11 points behind. Without Pogba, an unimaginative United surrendered 2-1 at home to their cross-city rivals and their manager conceded the title was ‘probably over’ after the derby defeat. Pogba would get his chance to show what he can do as he starred in a spectacular 3-2 come-from-behind win for United over City at the Etihad, but it was too little too late in the context of the title race.