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Look, we get it. To a certain way of thinking, blowouts are bad, indisputable superiority is boring, and a season with a wire-to-wire table-topper is not as enthralling as a tightly competitive one. It would be nice if this year's Premier League title race were a competition between two or more clubs of equal quality, if we could look to the future and see nothing but gloriously foggy uncertainty as to who and how the eventual champion will earn its hard -Fought trophy. Alas, this is not the case. Manchester City are hot on the trail of another dominating league win, and no one can stop them.
Though it's still pretty early in the season, it's still going to be more important than the Premier League's top three teams, it's just becoming more and more clear that City remains a cut above the rest. It is true that Liverpool is legitimately phenomenal, and that Chelsea has been much more impressive than many predicted. But still, in every facet of the game, City are just better-So much so that, barring the injury crisis of historic proportion, the Citizens are huge favorites to walk the league once again.
This weekend was a fine demonstration of City's outrageous abilities. Manchester's blue club faced Southampton at home on Sunday, and the city was understandably damaged by the fact that it was a natural disaster. We could-and-we-talk about City's six goals, and Raheem Sterling's continued ascension towards undeniable superstardom, and how absurdly simple Man City make carving apart solid teams in The Best League In The World ™, but the match's single-most staggering play , the most indicative of the city's calmly savage style of play, was one in which they did not even score:
There's just so much here. Their ability to get a shot at their penalty area, and their comfort with playing deep inside their territory, and their decision-making at all times prioritizes the best shot-not just any shot, even at times to their own detriment-is preposterous. The team played seven successful assists in the Saint's box during that 20-second stretch, numbers some teams would feel pretty good about completing an entire half. The players have their body on the front of their mouths and their eyes on the front of the door, and they will not be disappointed. deserved.
You could only criticize City for being too cute after all that you did not get in a shot before Kyle Walker thumped in a hopeless effort of long range, but then it would be more like a castigate for your profligacy in the middle of a 6-1 beatdown. It was simply one of the best passages of the world, and it serves as a summation of the kind of non-stop destruction.
Of course, there is much more to the game than that one wonderfully unconsummated flirtation with Southampton's goal. City's domination has been constant and comprehensive, and made for a marvelous show:
At this point it is almost not even worth considering the many reasons why England is so fearsome. Raheem Sterling scored twice and created two more assists, the best player in the Premier League. Sergio Aguero, once again, and resurgent season for him. Leroy Sané, who was one of the breakout performers of the season, who was one of the breakout .
Bernardo Silva once again showed why Kevin De Bruyne's (recently extended) injury absence has barely affected the team. David Silva was very close to the goal, and was soon to be 33-year-old, probably the best attacker-minded midfielder in England. City's depth is so unbelievable that Gabriel Jesus, Brazil's starting striker at the last World Cup, and Mahrez, not long ago the league's player of the season, did not even play . The combination of top-quality starters, wildly over-qualified rotation options, and a playing style that puts all of these exceptional players in position to score goals and prevent the other team from doing so with clock-like regularity is what makes City truly peerless in the Premier League this season.
None of Man City's rivals can come close to matching the total package the Citizens have on offer. Maurizio Sarri, and his possession-dominant and goal-friendly style comes close to approximating the system City boss Pep Guardiola has implemented, but both Chelsea's starting lineup and its bench pale in comparison to City's. It would be a real shock if Chelsea could keep them going for their money at the table.
Liverpool, then, are the only true challenger to City's dominance, but they have notable shortcomings. Though it is still a little too dependent on a couple of players, it's still a little too dependent on a couple of players to come up with goals to the thing that's most critical to a league-winning campaign: namely, to consistently beat the smaller teams. One of the most important things in the world can be made by people who are more likely to have a debilitating injury crisis or a couple of weeks of poor form of their starters. There's a reason Liverpool's draw against the City of Manchester, and why their draw against Arsenal this weekend was another big blow to their chances. In order to pull off the upset, Liverpool would have needed a couple of big ones.
The case for Manchester City's impending back-to-back title-winning seasons is hard to argue with. City score more goals (a league-leading 33) than anyone else, give up fewer goals (conceding just four times all year, the lowest number in the a league) than anyone else, have better offensive and defensive advanced stats than anyone else, have more great players than anyone else, and have a better coach than anyone else. They can beat the little teams and they can beat the big ones, with their starters or their backups, and it never looks like so much more than a challenge to do so. So while we'd love to have one or two of both Liverpool and Chelsea, we would like to take a walk to the city, we can not pretend like anyone else has a realistic shot to win the league this year. There is simply no stopping them. City's title will be here. Better to welcome the Citizen overlords before their new trophy arrives than to fight futilely against the new order.
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