It’s an appealing quirk of Selhurst Park that there’s a corner of the ground where the teams clack across the concrete right in front of you, onto and off the pitch, where you can see what they are physically made of.
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City teams were never flimsy. They had Vincent Kompany and Fernandinho and Sergio Agüero. But the current one has a kind of functional height and power to fit the way Premier League football is played now. The aesthetics are taking a year or two off.
There’s a theory that City are coming like a monster in the night to take this Premier League title race away from Arsenal, because that’s what City do, while Arsenal, the idea goes, are a stumble waiting to happen.
That’s the hypothesis. The hard facts are that City are now two points behind an Arsenal team beset by injury in their strongest area – their defence. City started unconvincingly at Crystal Palace but asserted their class to win 3-0, with two from Erling Haaland and one by Phil Foden. Both are in formidable nick.
Not even the Palace crowd chanting “where were you at Wembley” could stop Haaland scoring his second from the penalty spot. The taunt was a reference to Haaland’s loss of nerve in the FA Cup final, when he handed the penalty taking job to Omar Marmoush, whose kick was saved. Palace won the Cup and Haaland had to endure pundits questioning his courage.
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That feels a long time ago. Haaland has 17 league goals in 16 appearances this term. Eleven days ago he completed the fastest Premier League century, smashing Alan Shearer’s record.
“He’s inevitable,” City posted after his first at Selhurst Park. There are spells in a season when it feels that way. At the same time Arsenal have picked up injuries to their defenders Gabriel, Cristhian Mosquera, Ben White and William Saliba, who was risked on Saturday night against Wolves. Arsenal’s manager, Mikel Arteta, has called his defensive losses a “dangerous circle”.
To be stark, the league’s best defence is clinging to its lead against the division’s best attack
To be stark, the league’s best defence is clinging to its lead against the division’s best attack, although Guardiola stuck up for his back line – especially Ruben Dias (“a great captain, a great leader, and so vocal”).
It may be that a fourth-near miss for Arsenal is looming, but it won’t be City’s majesty that deposes them, because they don’t have as much of it as Guardiola’s finest Man City sides.
Those teams purred. This one is tall and strong but sometimes clunky: a post tiki-taka construction to fit the league’s new reality of more long hits of the ball and set piece choreography. Guardiola spoke after the game of how much defending his team had to do “in our box”. He also said it was never “a red carpet” for his title-winning teams.
Against Palace, who started the day in fifth position, the new pragmatism showed its power to give the glamour teams more problems than they’ve faced in recent years. Until two City luminaries in prime form broke them with a back-post header and penalty (Haaland) and a composed, hard-pass into the net by Foden, who has now scored six in four Premier League matches.
Like many upwardly mobile Premier League teams, Palace know how to block, frustrate, unsettle and counter-attack in precise patterns. It seems an age since half the league’s 20 sides were content to just keep the score down against English football’s Champions League regulars. This time, Palace paid for not taking their chances.
Hence the mid-table compression, and the sense that European qualification this season is more open than ever. If City win the title, Guardiola’s adjustment to a changed world should be remembered as one of the most notable feats of his career.
Piling up art and expensive signings has been his modus operandi (alongside brilliant coaching). Taking artistry out, and replacing it with more functional play, won’t have come naturally to him, but Arsenal can feel its effect.
Haaland is the ultimate insurance policy against run of the mill performances tipping into defeat
City have an asset to render tactical trends irrelevant. They have Haaland, the game changer and game saver – the ultimate insurance policy against run of the mill performances tipping into defeat.
Foden is currently close behind him. Guardiola said the key to Foden’s talent is is not being “anxious” and staying calm. That way, he said, he can improve his “understanding of the game” – his connections to the moves made by team-mates.
Under Guardiola, in City’s system, Foden is capable of great flourishes. With England too often he has looked out of his natural element, and failed to impose himself. Only he can change that.
Fittingly, for an international manager, England’s Thomas Tuchel, in the stands, rummaged around inside one of those striped pick and mix paper bags, trying to find the best ones. As a metaphor for World Cup squad selection it would take some beating. Foden’s place looks safe, though Tuchel will know he still has some intensive coaching to do to close that club-country gap.
Photograph by Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty