Arsenal and Manchester City will face off in the final weeks of the Premier League title race.
Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola
Manchester City doesn’t seem to have been as successful this year.
Naturally, that is relative, considering that they were only the second English team in history to win a treble in the previous season. Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne’s long-term injuries are two more factors that must be taken into account.
Pep Guardiola, who criticized responses he considered excessive during City’s losing streak earlier in the season, would likely disagree as well. The manager’s response to any comparisons between the play this year and previous ones has been “quite similar.”
It doesn’t feel like City has reached the heights they did last season, even though the lows may have been less low. Erling Haaland’s demolition runs have decreased, rival victories haven’t been as convincing, and more comeback victories have been needed to tie the score.
It hasn’t seemed to be as compelling. This season could be better, on paper, at least.
Not only can City win the league for the fourth time in a row with four victories, but they can also surpass their point total from the previous season. One could argue that if the title hadn’t already been secured, they would have gained more than one point from their games against Brentford and Brighton at the end of the previous season, but it wasn’t, and they didn’t.
That wouldn’t be questioned when history was written and it was revealed that the Blues had gained two more points this season. A final score of 91 would also fulfill a Mikel Arteta prediction, though it’s unlikely he would value it highly. In a title fight with many strong teams, the manager of Arsenal stated at the beginning of March that it would be “very difficult” to win the league with fewer than 90 points.
Given how many strong teams the three primary title rivals had to face, it seemed like a stretch at the time. The amount may prove to be greater than all of them, but City has the last chance to surpass that threshold.
That would be noteworthy during any season, but it is even more noteworthy given that it comes right after the team’s Treble year, when motivation is even more of a challenge. Their league winning streak would reach 23 games without a loss if they win their remaining four games, which would be a record under Guardiola.
Even though some of the previous performances weren’t as good as the current ones, this is likely more a reflection of how entertaining and strong City has been for such a long time. If Arteta’s title prediction comes true, it would be the most recent example of a team continuously raising the bar and exceeding expectations.
