Date published: Monday 25th February 2019 3:11
It didn’t even need Manchester City to play in the Premier League to feel like there has been a shift in their direction in the title race. While neither game that affected the champions’ pursuit of every piece of silverware was particularly enthralling – both Liverpool’s draw at Old Trafford and City’s penalty shoot-out victory in the League Cup final were yawnfests – it was a day when supporters might feel things are starting to fall into place.
Before Sunday evening, City had never retained a trophy. Of course, fans might have preferred keeping hold of a more prestigious pot, but the League Cup just about scrapes into the major honours bracket – even if it is in fourth place out of four. Nevertheless, it’s another achievement notched up by Pep Guardiola and it’s another marker by which the success of the Sheikh Mansour era can be measured.
Whatever happens at City, whatever they do achieve is never enough – and it never will be. Ultimately, that’s because of the money they’ve spent and the continual cash injections that allowed them a future that was impossible when managed by Kevin Keegan or Stuart Pearce in the mid-noughties.
When Mansour first invested in the playing squad, City had to win something. Then they had to win a league. Then they had to win two things in a season. Then they had to defend something. Now they’ve done it, it turns out it’s a league title they have to defend to be considered great. Back-to-back League Cups are hardly enough to start giving the European elite nightmares, but nevertheless the goalposts are regularly being shifted.
What winning the League Cup for a second-year running does is get the monkey off City’s back. It relieves that pressure of never having successfully defended a trophy – much in the same way as the 2011 FA Cup ended a 35-year silverware drought and the 2012 title put to an end 44 years of failure in the league.
No team has defended the Premier League title since Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in 2009. Clearly, the English top flight has since become far more competitive – with City joining the party and a brand-new English champion in Leicester City cropping up in 2016, too. The pressure of defending the title has exploded.
It’s good for City not to have the added pressure of defending silverware for the first time, too, though City were undoubtedly a little lucky to win the League Cup on Sunday. For long spells of the match, they carried minimal threat – not that Chelsea were much more dangerous – and the headline from the 120-minute bore draw was not the football, but the row between Maurizio Sarri and Kepa Arrizabalaga.
But that victory, coming after Liverpool’s just-as-toothless display at Old Trafford, crowned a day when Guardiola could see momentum shifting towards the Etihad. Just a few weeks ago, when City lost 2-1 at Newcastle the night before Liverpool hosted Leicester, it felt like the title could only be going to Anfield. In imperious form, Jurgen Klopp’s side had the opportunity to open up a seven-point gap. A month later, the Reds sit one point ahead on level games and are playing far more nervously than at any juncture of the season.
Old Trafford should have been a gift: United lost three players to injury in the first half and their game-plan was practically out of the window by the break, but still Liverpool could not get going against the walking wounded and meandered to a point. Later in the day, City meandered to a trophy.
Should have gone to penalties for me. Save us all the trouble. City not been a threat at all…
— David Mooney (@DavidMooney) February 24, 2019
Earlier in the year, it felt like it was City playing the pretty football and Liverpool grinding out results. Now, it feels like City can do both – while Liverpool, at times, are struggling to do either. Injuries to Fernandinho and Aymeric Laporte sustained at Wembley could be problematic, but City’s fixture list looks fairly kind until a double-header of Tottenham at the Etihad and United at Old Trafford towards the end of April.
They should progress past Schalke, having stolen two late away goals to bring a lead back from Germany, and the FA Cup looks to have opened up nicely for City, too – if they fail there then they only have themselves to blame at this stage.
If City do go on to retain the Premier League as well as the League Cup this season – and manage to add other silverware too – this could be the weekend the momentum shifted from Merseyside to Manchester.
David Mooney – host and producer of the Blue Moon podcast
