How Do You Solve a Problem Like Man City?

By Jonathan Gault

Saturday’s Man City-Arsenal game was hyped as a can’t-miss affair between the league leaders and the team that couldn’t be beaten at home. We’ve already had a few duds in contests billed as “the game of the season” – remember Man United 0, Chelsea 0 on Aug. 26? – but the Blues’ commanding 6-3 victory over the Gunners surpassed even the most optimistic fan’s expectations.

The term “end-to-end stuff” is tossed around by announcers to describe games in which both teams play attacking football, creating chances at both ends in quick succession. It’s rare for a game to sustain that breakneck pace for more than 10 or 20 minutes, but Saturday’s match at the Etihad Stadium – with two goals in stoppage time – featured 90+ minutes of end-to-end stuff.

Photo Courtesy of Standard Media UK

The defensive-minded fan might not appreciate this one, as Arsenal’s defending was poor at times. Laurent Koscielny forgot about Sergio Aguero inside the six-yard box on City’s first goal, allowing one of the most dangerous forwards in England a free shot at the Arsenal goal. Per Mertesacker was slow to react on the Blues’ fourth, as David Silva beat him to the ball after the German lazily stabbed at a Jesus Navas cross. It got worse for Mertesacker, as he looked completely lost 22 minutes later when a simple Samir Nasri-Fernandinho passing move completely undid the Arsenal defense. He did make up for it by scoring at the other end in stoppage time, but by then it was far too little, far too late.

With the win, City moved to fourth and closed the gap on leaders Arsenal, who now lead second-place Liverpool by just two points. The game also demonstrated what has now become evident: Manchester City are invincible at home.

The gaudy statistics:

Played: 8   Won: 8  Goals For: 35  Goals Against: 5

Those 35 goals are so many as to be absurd. Not only do the they average out to a ridiculous 4.4 per game, but only one other club (Liverpool) has scored even 20 goals at home. And for you sample-size types out there, you should know that every Premier League team has played the same number of games at home.

City’s away struggles have been well-documented (http://www.epsportsmag.com/2013/11/road-blues.html), but it bears repeating: it’s hard to comprehend how different the Blues are when they play on the road. Man City have beaten top-8 teams Newcastle, Man United, Everton, Spurs and Arsenal by at home by a combined score of 23 to 5. But City has also lost away to bottom-half teams Cardiff, Aston Villa and Sunderland.

With an attack overflowing with talent – City is on pace to score 112 goals, shattering Chelsea’s Premier League record of 103 from 2009-10 – it would make sense to press forward in every game, home or away, and rely on superior talents such as Aguero, Silva, Alvaro Negredo and Yaya Toure to outscore other teams. That just hasn’t been the case, as City has looked tentative and afraid of leaving itself vulnerable to the counter-attack. When the Blues are on their game – and at home, they are, more often than not – they play at a level that no other team in England can reach. But they’re merely average on the road. Ten teams have more road points than City’s eight, and average teams don’t win championships.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention Liverpool’s 5-0 destruction of Tottenham on Sunday at White Hart Lane, so I’ll cover that briefly now. I don’t know what was the more shocking revelation: that Luis Suarez had a hand in all five goals, scoring twice and assisting three times or that I wasn’t even remotely surprised that he had done so.

Despite missing five games, Suarez has scored 17 times this season – more than 10 Premier League TEAMS. Suarez and his Liverpool teammates were allowed free reign over the Tottenham penalty area, slipping behind Spurs’ back four whenever they pleased. That’s a recipe for disaster against any Premier League team; against Suarez, it’s downright cataclysmic.

It’s still December, but it’s not unreasonable to think Suarez could mount a challenge at the single-season goalscoring record. Alan Shearer and Cristiano Ronaldo share the record for a 38-game season at 31, and while Suarez is not going to continue to average over 1.5 goals per game, 15 goals from his remaining 22 matches is well within the range of possibility. The all-time Premier League of 34 goals (set by Shearer and Andy Cole when Premier League teams played 42 games in a season) is also attainable, though it would obviously take a little more effort. Suarez and Liverpool now face Cardiff on Saturday before heading to the Etihad for a top-of-the table clash with Man City on Boxing Day. 

Think there will be any goals in that one?