It has been another bad week for Manchester City. But after being knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid and symbolically dethroned as Premier League champions in a 2-0 home defeat to runaway leaders Liverpool, it could get even worse from here for Pep Guardiola’s team.
Leaving aside the shadow of the hearing into the Premier League’s 115 charges for breaching financial regulations — a verdict is expected within the next month or so — the weeks ahead look bleak for a team that last season became the first in English history to win four successive league titles.
City have lost 14 of their past 27 games in all competitions and eight of their past 17 in the Premier League. Their woeful form, which is unprecedented since Guardiola’s arrival as coach in 2016, has now left the club facing a battle to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Wednesday’s Premier League trip to Tottenham Hotspur has become meaningless in terms of City’s title hopes. With Liverpool 20 points ahead at the top of the table, City are out of the running to claim a fifth straight championship. But it is crucial nonetheless in the context of saving City’s season.
Even though the Premier League is almost certain to have five Champions League qualification spots for next season (with England in a dominant position at the top of UEFA’s coefficient table) the safety net of the extra place will only offer the faintest of comfort to City in contrast to their worrying form. Sitting in fourth position in the Premier League heading into the midweek fixtures, City are only a point clear of sixth-place AFC Bournemouth and just four ahead of ninth-place Brighton & Hove Albion.
Over the past 10 Premier League games, City sit in sixth position in the form guide, with Bournemouth and Newcastle — sixth and fifth respectively in the table — ahead of them. In the past 15 games, City are ninth behind Chelsea, Aston Villa, Bournemouth and Newcastle United, so the threat to Guardiola’s hopes of extending City’s run of Champions League qualifications to a 14th straight season is clear.
City are beset by injuries — Ballon d’Or winner Rodri might not play again this season, John Stones and Manuel Akanji are facing weeks on the sidelines and Erling Haaland’s knee injury is causing concern — and serial winners Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gündogan and Bernardo Silva are fading fast as players capable of making an impact.
So could City’s season actually get worse to the extent that they miss out on qualifying for the Champions League? The reality is that they are now one of six clubs scrambling for two places, and recent performances offer little encouragement that Guardiola’s squad have nothing to worry about.
The good news for City is that none of the teams below them are tearing it up. Newcastle have lost three of their past six Premier League games, including a 4-0 loss at City on Feb. 15, while Bournemouth’s impressive run of four wins in five league games was surprisingly halted with a 1-0 home defeat to relegation-threatened Wolverhampton Wanderers over the weekend.
Chelsea have dropped to seventh following a nightmare run of two wins and five defeats in their past 10 league games, and Villa only ended a five-game Premier League winless streak with a 2-1 victory against Chelsea at Villa Park on Saturday. Brighton have the best form of the Champions League chasers, winning four of their past six league games, but their two defeats in that run were a shocking 1-0 loss at home to a then-struggling Everton and a 7-0 hammering at Forest. So of the six teams chasing the final two Champions League qualification spots, none can boast of being in unbeatable form, but the inconsistency is giving them all hope of a top-five finish.
City, at least, have the benefit of being in control of their own destiny because they occupy a Champions League spot. It’s a simple equation for Guardiola and his players: Win more games than the teams below you, and it will be possible to salvage the bare minimum from this season. But that means beating a resurgent Spurs on Wednesday and then denting Brighton’s hopes with another victory at the Etihad on March 15. City also have home games against Villa and Bournemouth in the weeks ahead.
By this stage of a typical City season under Guardiola, all of those games would be regarded as nothing short of formalities, with City surging to a series of wins on the way to another title.
But this isn’t a typical season, and City have been dragged down into the ranks of also-rans, so nothing can be guaranteed — not even a place in the Champions League.
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