goal.com
Sunday's defeat of Liverpool will be seen as a springboard for the rest of the season, but there is much more behind City's recent revival and March represents a real opportunity.
Predicting Manchester City’s fortunes this season has proven to be a very risky business. After roaring out of the traps in the Premier League they are nine points off top spot having lost their biggest games of the season. In the Champions League they’ve put in their two best performances of the campaign but were somewhat lucky to top their group. When Emre Can dinked Willy Caballero with the first penalty at Wembley on Sunday, it looked like it was going to be one of those days.
Things have not always been smooth, but still City hang on. This is a group of players often dismissed as disloyal or uninterested, but nobody present at the dramatic League Cup final could say the 14 men deployed by Manuel Pellegrini did not give everything to win that match. Yaya Toure, so often a target of disgruntled fans, did raise eyebrows when he was caught sitting out his team-mates’ celebrations in a post-game dressing room photo, but he was imperious on the pitch, putting in a controlling, creative and combative performance reminiscent of his finest in a City shirt.
Vincent Kompany, named the sponsors’ man of the match and only recently returned from his injury nightmare, was impenetrable and intelligent. The defence, with the captain back and playing behind an organised midfield, were as compact and determined as they have been at their best this season (which is not often without Kompany among them, it must be said).
Fernandinho continues to be City’s player of the season, even as a right winger, while Fernando proved his worth as a deep-lying midfielder and shield for his defence.
David Silva had been out of form for several weeks but he helped City take control after being moved closer to Sergio Aguero at half-time. Aguero himself spent much of the match isolated but chased every ball and, were it not for Simon Mignolet’s left hand, would have had a couple of cup final goals. Only Raheem Sterling stood out for the wrong reasons: his missed sitter clearly affecting him as he endured the taunts of his former fans.
And then there was Caballero, the man who would have been left back in Manchester had it been put to a public vote, but who ended the day carried from the pitch on the shoulders of his team-mates.
It was a fine end to the season for him. Perverse as it may seem after such a heroic performance, he is unlikely to play again as City push ahead in the Premier League and the Champions League. The Argentine has played every domestic cup match in his 18 months at City but can only hope to deputise in the top competitions when Joe Hart is injured. Unless injury strikes or City can somehow wrap up the title before the last day of the season, Caballero may not see action again.
So City will now turn their attentions to the business end of the season. February was a gruelling month and while their Premier League hopes took a hit, they are out of the FA Cup and players have picked up injuries, the Blues have also emerged with one foot in the Champions League quarter-finals and the fifth trophy of the Sheikh Mansour era.
March starts with a trip to Anfield – surely winnable – and offers up games against Aston Villa and Norwich City, as well as what should be the formality of the second leg against Dynamo Kiev. Even the Manchester derby at the end of the month comes at a good time for City, with United hosting Liverpool in the Europa League three days beforehand.
With players set to return from injury in the coming weeks – Wilfried Bony and Jesus Navas came on on Sunday, Eliaquim Mangala is fit again and Samir Nasri and Kevin De Bruyne are working towards comebacks – things could be coming together at the right time.
The away form of Pellegrini’s men held back their title charge for most of the season, but they had conceded more at the Etihad Stadium than on their travels even before being beaten by Leicester City and Tottenham.
But they did not approach those games with the same set-up that has delivered deserved wins in their two previous games. Pellegrini is not a manager to make changes if he thinks things are going well and he would be foolish to abandon this approach for the biggest games that lay ahead.
After all, 3-1 wins in Seville and Kiev have been their finest performances of the season and suggest that a first ever quarter-final should not be the height of their European ambitions this season. And while it may have taken a penalty shoot-out to seal victory, with the same outlook they completely stifled the same Liverpool team that had torn them to pieces back in November.
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