Filing under the eminently predictable/bleeding obvious, a sports betting company recently produced some stats showing Manchester City have by far the best end-of-season record of any Premier League club.
Their winning percentage in the last two months of the season over the past decade is a good 10 per cent better than their closest rivals Arsena l, and 15 per cent better than Liverpool. It is not hard to understand why. When your net spend is four or five times higher than your closest rival, it inevitably delivers a squad with a depth beyond the dreams of other clubs. And with depth comes strength at the business end of the season.
Consider City’s bench at Palace. With no Ruben Dias or Benjamin Mendy, they were still able to boast the likes of Sterling, Gundogan, Jesus, Ake, Zinchenko and Fernandinho amongst their subs, non-starting players who totalled a conservative £320m. It is not rocket science, but simple economics.
