Hallowe’en came a day early for Manchester City and Pep Guardiola last year. The day before the dead are supposed to walk amongst us, the Blues put on a horror show of their own to lose 2-0 at home to Crystal Palace and hand Chelsea a five-point lead at the top of the table.
But the spectre of failure which haunted the Blues ’ autumn for two years on the trot gave way to another storming run and glorious spring, with a fourth Premier League title win in five years, a feat that has promoted this team into the company of immortals. Only seven other teams in history have managed that kind of consistency in winning league titles - Aston Villa in the 1890s, Arsenal in the 1930s, Liverpool in the 1970s and 80s, and Manchester United in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.
And given the fierce competition offered by Liverpool - a team that chalked up the third-highest points total in English football history when finishing second to the Blues in 2019 - it makes City's achievement even more spectacular. This day seemed a long way off on the opening day of the season, when a dismal 1-0 defeat at Tottenham condemned City to a third consecutive loss, having been felled by Leicester in the Community Shield a week earlier, just a couple of months after the desolation of losing the Champions League final to Chelsea.
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With players straggling back after another tiring summer of international tournaments, and midfield inspiration Kevin De Bruyne counting the cost of a summer that had seen him fracture an eye socket on that dismal night in Porto and then suffer an inhibiting ankle problem playing for Belgium at Euro 2020, another glorious day in May seemed a long way off.
Whilst their start to the season was nowhere near as bad as it had been a year earlier, City were being haunted by the horrendous autumn they had a year earlier, when a defeat at leaders Tottenham left them in 11th, eight points off top spot.
They were armed with the knowledge that in 2020-21 they had put together an astonishing run of 15 straight wins that had left early-season pace-setters Spurs and main rivals Liverpool gasping in their wake.
But even the most optimistic Blue felt that this season the stakes had been raised. Liverpool had key defender Virgil Van Dijk back from injury and had strengthened their midfield considerably with the shrewd signing of Thiago Alacantara.
Chelsea also seemed to have built on their Champions League triumph by signing Romelu Lukaku, and even Manchester United seemed to be gearing up for a fresh assault by picking up Jadon Sancho, Cristiano Ronaldo and Raphael Varane.
City had not been idle, bringing in Jack Grealish, but their failure to land Harry Kane, leaving a large hole in their striker department for a second year running, seemed to be costing them dearly.
The return to form of John Stones in the 2020-21 title season, and the decisions of key players Aymeric Laporte and Bernardo Silva to stay and fight, were huge boosts, but the Blues still looked a little top-heavy - packed with an outstanding array of attacking talent but still short of a midfielder - which would mean Rodri being asked to grit his teeth and again play an enormous amount of games - and muddling by without an authentic left back with Benjamin Mendy suspended pending his trial.
The others sensed weakness, especially after that underwhelming defeat at White Hart Lane on the opening day, and even successive 5-0 wins over Norwich and a self-destructive Arsenal could not persuade City pessimists and the club's detractors, from suggesting it was otherwise.
A goalless draw at home to Southampton seemed to confirm the worst fears of City’s old guard of hangdog supporters, and even a week in which they won at Stamford Bridge and then were robbed by outrageously bad refereeing in a 2-2 draw at Anfield, failed to dispel the notion.
The Blues continued to piece together wins, in both league and Champions League, but the notion that this team was understaffed and under-cooked would not go away, and the Carabao Cup exit at West Ham - their first defeat in that competition for five years - followed by the horror show against Palace, when Aymeric Laporte gifted Patrick Vieira’s side a goal and then got himself sent off, failed to dispel the notion that was not going to another vintage year.
With Manchester United encouraged by that Palace result, and lying in wait at Old Trafford the following week, it was a seminal moment in the season. City rose to the challenge magnificently, dominating the Reds in a way that has rarely been seen in a Manchester derby, and being worth far more than the conservative 2-0 scoreline they recorded.
With Rodri - good in his debut season without being great - finally becoming the midfield kingpin he was brought in to be, Bernardo Silva in ebullient mood and Joao Cancelo making it look like being a playmaker from left-back was a role he had been born to play, City were going through the gears.
De Bruyne had been a little more subdued, but he was recovering from the hangover of an exhausting and injury-hit 2021, and his best was being stowed away for a rainy day. Just as they had a year earlier, the wins started to pile up.
A 7-0 thrashing of Leeds was payback for the Yorkshire side’s cheek in taking four points off the Blues in their return to the Premier League the season before, and that was quickly followed by a 4-0 triumph at Newcastle and a thrill-a-minute 6-3 Boxing Day spectacular against Leicester.
Rodri’s late winning goal at Arsenal on New Year’s Day, as City came from behind against Mikel Arteta’s rejuvenated outfit, prompted wild shirt-less celebrations in front of angry Gooners which brought back memories of Emmanuel Adebayor’s infamous sprint and knee-slide at the Etihad 13 years earlier.
And when the Blues completed a league double over their Euro conquerors Chelsea a fortnight later, through De Bruyne’s stunning effort, the unbelievers were forced back into the temple of City worship.
The pretenders had all failed to keep pace with City’s burst of form, and early in the new year they were 14 points clear of third-placed Liverpool - who had two games in hand - and 13 ahead of second-placed Chelsea.
Guardiola would describe what looked like an unassailable lead over Jurgen Klopp’s team as “false” as he was bracing his squad for Liverpool themselves - badly hit by a Christmas period in which they had drawn with Spurs and Chelsea and lost at Leicester - to produce their own surge.
A draw at Southampton made it plain that the run-in would be more nervy than the league table had suggested it would be, and the irony of Harry Kane’s brilliant performance unhinging the Blues in a 3-2 Spurs win at the Etihad was as crucial as it was ironic. The player Guardiola had wanted to complete his squad had just delivered a serious blow to their title hopes, and with relentless Liverpool reeling off win after win, that big lead was suddenly down to six points, with Klopp’s men still having played a game less.
A tight win at Everton and another predictably one-sided mauling of United in the return Manchester derby were followed by another damaging draw, at bogey team Palace. The gap was now down to four points, with Liverpool - in the middle of a ten-match winning streak - still having that game in hand, and “momentum” became the buzzword for the excitable Merseyside types who populate our pundit studios and press boxes.
By the time the two runaway title rivals met at the Etihad in April, Chelsea were panting along ten points behind, but the Merseysiders had won their game in hand, at Arsenal, to go just one point behind the leaders. Victory in Manchester would have seen them leapfrog to top spot and take the initiative in a tense race.
City twice lead and twice were pegged back in another classic exhibition between two teams who were, with some justification, being lauded as the two best on the planet at that moment.
Defeat by Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final a week later, when City fielded a weakened team following their exertions in a tough Champions League quarter-final at Atletico Madrid which was wedged inbetween those two games, just encouraged the notion that Liverpool were coming on strong and City were showing signs of weakness as the season neared a climax.
City responded in the only way they know, by reeling off victories, as De Bruyne did his passable impression of Yaya Toure in 2014 by seizing proceedings by the scruff of the neck with goals and assists. Wins over Brighton, Watford, Leeds, Newcastle, and Wolves kept City top and the fact they ramped up their goalscoring to win those games by an aggregate of 22-2 meant they also overhauled Liverpool’s previously sizeable advantage in goal difference.
With everyone expecting City to blink first, especially after the trauma of somehow losing their Champions League semi-final to Real Madrid, Kane finally did his bit to help them win the title by teeing up Heung Min Son’s goal at Anfield in a 1-1 draw that gave City breathing space at the top.
But it all came down to that final match, and City - again - put their fans through the mill by going 2-0 down to Villa, only to mount that astonishing second-half comeback to claim the title.
Typical City - and we wouldn't want it any other way.
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