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By Sam Lee Dec 20, 2021 6
Statistics and quirky facts do not mean much to Pep Guardiola, but he sees the value in the latest record that his brilliant Manchester City side have broken.
Sunday’s 4-0 win at Newcastle United, where they were not even at their best, means they have set a new high bar for the lesser-spotted ‘Premier League wins in a calendar year’ competition.
Ultimately, that means little and it would mean even less if Chelsea or Liverpool end up lifting the title in May, but Guardiola and his players will appreciate all the work that has gone into a fantastic 2021 — and they might take some brief comfort in the fact that it appears to bode well for 2022.
After all, in mid-December 2020 they were as low as ninth. And if it felt like they weren’t especially good at St James’ Park then it might be worth remembering their 1-0 victory at Southampton just before Christmas last year, when they battled and battled for a win just to give them something to cling to after two disappointing draws.
They are unrecognisable since then, and that is why all this calendar year business does actually mean something.
Not only did City storm to the title and reach the Champions League final between January and May, but they have got to a position in December whereby they might even be better.
Guardiola likes to make the point that the team to have won the Premier League title always finishes a mile off the top the season afterwards, and he is surely very happy — perhaps a little smug — to still be able to say that after Liverpool could not maintain their high standards last season.
Only one team has successfully defended their title since Manchester United did so in 2009, and that is City. Given they have won three of the last four, you could flip that the other way and say that the only time they did not win it, at least they still finished second instead of falling out of the top four like most of the others have done.
It is a psychological pattern that human beings relax after success, and that has been seen time and time again in the history of the Premier League, never mind other leagues and other sports.
Raheem Sterling
Sterling celebrates his goal and City’s fourth (Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
Only the greats keep coming back for more — and that’s the company this City side deserve to be in.
Even more so when you consider that several of their players were keen to leave the club in the summer, or at least were open to it. That nobody did and City did not get the striker they wanted (or even the back-up) could have been a recipe for disaster.
We could have been sat here after a draw at Newcastle — just like the one in November 2019 which basically ended whatever title hopes remained — and be talking about disharmony in the camp and the players that slipped through City’s grasp.
They could have felt tired, angry, uninterested and any number of negative thoughts and feelings that mean you do not make the five-yard sprints that Guardiola demands, that you have a few more nights out than you should do.
If there were no guarantees at this time last year that City were about to burst into life, there certainly were not any in August after more trophies had been added to the cabinet.
Yet the reality is that they look as hungry as ever — a desire to win that matches the incredible technical ability the players possess and the remarkable talents Guardiola has for setting up a side.
That is what sets them apart and that is why all of those statistics and records are starting to pile up.
Not only has their winning mentality and desire been recognised by recording the most wins in a calendar year, it is now an unarguable matter of historical certainty that they have done it in style: the last team to score more than City’s 106 league goals — Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo, Riyad Mahrez and Raheem Sterling adding the four at Newcastle — in a calendar year was Arsenal. In 1963.
If City score another seven goals in their next two games — against Leicester City and Brentford, should those fixtures go ahead — then they will have broken that record, too.
Having won the last eight league games, they are top at Christmas — and the omens suggest that is a good thing, too, given they have been in this position twice before and gone on to win the title.
Again, it will be the hard work behind the glamorous fact that will give City the most encouragement. They have been to Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Leicester, and some of the trickier Premier League grounds like Villa Park and now St James’.
Oh, and they have won more away games in a calendar year than anybody else too, for all the reasons above.
There is still a long way to go and even if City carry on playing the way they have been there is a very real danger that Liverpool could match them all the way and nick the title on the back of an unlucky bounce or dodgy refereeing decision. That those could be the margins just reflects how great these two sides are.
But there is every reason, as we look back on another year of football, for City to feel very proud of what they have achieved — and very excited for what could come next.
