Mind the gap. Manchester City and Chelsea meet as they both find themselves on the wrong side of significant divides. Pep Guardiola finds himself with eight points to make up to Arsenal, Graham Potter with 10 to the top four. If there are plenty who still think the Spaniard’s City side will end up champions, there may be fewer who think the Englishman’s underperforming, underwhelming Chelsea team will join them in next season’s Champions League.
The common theme was a question of expectations. If Potter is trying to downplay them, as though preparing Chelsea for back-to-back defeats to City in two competitions over the space of four days – they meet again in the FA Cup on Sunday – Guardiola is railing against them. His side have raised the standards but, with characteristic exaggeration, he argued they are now charged with taking a 20-point lead by November. City are natural frontrunners in title races: this time, however, Arsenal’s near immaculate form has meant the defending champions are playing catch-up. They have a proven ability to go on extended winning runs. Nevertheless, Guardiola feels the league leaders Arsenal are not subjected to as much pressure as his side.
“The advantage of Arsenal is he [Mikel Arteta] has not to win the Premier League from 20 points in front in November,” he said. One of Guardiola’s stranger arguments, often deployed when defending City’s record in the Champions League, is that the distant past can help the footballing establishment, as though some kind of institutional memory can benefit managers and players who follow in the footsteps of those who flourished long ago at big clubs. Now Arsenal and Manchester United, both fallen giants in recent years, are revived and yet, he argues, without the same burden of expectation.
“I don’t know what is going to happen in the future – I’ve said many times I can’t answer that – but when you play [them] the smell of the history of Arsenal has to be there,” Guardiola said. “The advantage of Arsenal and Manchester United right now is nobody has to win the Premier League for 20 points ahead in November like Man City has to, and this is sometimes a big problem. But with this Arsenal winning all their games and you are eight points behind, it can happen.”
City rendered their own task harder by failing to beat Everton on Saturday. They have only taken one point from their last two home matches. Guardiola nonetheless said: “I see the way we played the last games, and the feeling is good. Maybe we play s**t tomorrow but the feeling is good.”
City nevertheless have won four of their last six league games. Chelsea’s recent form stands at one victory in seven. In the top four in October, they are now only west London’s third representatives in the table. Potter argued defeats have helped him progress this far as he has forged a unique career. His warning was that it may get worse before it gets better.
“As much as we want to win and it is not acceptable to lose but part of the game is dropping points,” said Potter, a manager who has dropped too many of late. “It is not succeeding and you have to suffer and try to get better. When I think back to how I have got to this point, a lot of the things that have got me [here] are the setbacks and moments of struggle.”
Potter has a high-profile admirer in Guardiola, who has championed him since his Swansea days, and a growing band of detractors among the Chelsea fanbase. “You understand when results are not how you like them to be there is always people who question you because you are a human being and you don’t do everything perfectly there is room to improve,” Potter said. “It is not like the people who are criticising you are 100 per cent wrong.”
There is scope for improvement and criticism. Part of it lies in his record with his new charges. Whereas he showed a capacity to take players to new levels at Brighton, most have underperformed for him at Chelsea. A case in point is one of Guardiola’s great success stories. Raheem Sterling scored 10 goals in his first season under the Spaniard. That tally rose to 31 in his best. He was voted Footballer of the Year. He was a signing Thomas Tuchel championed for Chelsea but, after a bright start under the German, has a lone league goal for Potter.
Like many, Sterling is a symptom and a victim of Chelsea’s underachievement. “I think it has been a challenge for him,” Potter said. “It has been a challenging period for everybody. There is a lot of change and a lot of things have happened. In that regard it is never easy to completely settle and hit the ground running. There is more to come from Raheem but he gives his best every day and we need to help him get to the level we know he can get to.”
If the level City can get back to is where they win the league, Chelsea have to close a bigger gap to get into the top four. Lose at Stamford Bridge on Thursday and it may seem a bridge too far.
