Pep Guardiola was reflecting on Manchester City’s recent past, studded with silverware, a near guarantee of glory. “It doesn’t mean we are going to do it in the future,” he counselled. And yet the spectre of City looms large over their rivals. “City are not 15 points ahead [as they can be] or they are usually a few points ahead and there is a bigger gap to the other teams and then in January, February and March they go full throttle,” said Jurgen Klopp, who has more experience than anyone else of chasing City in the title race.
It felt like proof that a City surge is almost priced in by everyone else: it is the factor they cannot control, the element that could turn a close contest into a cruise. And yet, Guardiola noted, City went to Saudi Arabia with him fielding questions that they could be 12 points behind Liverpool by the time they kicked a ball in the Premier League again. Instead, they reached the half-way point in their campaign a mere two behind the leaders, with the sense their best is yet to come.
