The Day Liverpool's Destiny Left Their Hands

       With an enthralling title run in set for the next few months, the English Premier League is proving once again why it is arguably the best league in the world, what is without argument is that the EPL is the most entertaining league in the world and viewers all around the world are set for the most dramatic of league finishes. It isn’t much of a guess to say who would win the Ligue 1 title as 19 points separates the league leaders from the nearest challengers. Same goes for Serie A and La Liga but the EPL is set for a pulsating finish. On the same day when Liverpool were left cursing their luck and wondering how they let a seven-point lead slip from their grasp while handing the initiative to the blue half of Manchester, I dug in to find an article I wrote on this City side who look set to go on to greater things dated 19^th May 2018. I feel compelled to post this at this time.

IS PEP BUILDING A DYNASTY AT CITY?

      Pep Guardiola’s reign at Manchester City kicked off with much fanfare and aplomb. And it was rightly so, for Txiki Begiristain (City’s director of Football) and Ferran Soriano (CEO of Manchester City FC) had done the job and Khaldoon Al Mubarak (Chairman of Manchester City FC) had his man. 

The man whose success had been followed with awe from afar was now on English soil and to have him at City was a real coup. Expectations were high and it was taken for granted that come May, there would be a title parade at City but somewhere in West London, a Russian wasn’t part of that plot and proceeded to carry out an Italian Job.

      The hysteria, hype and ecstasy of Pep’s appointment glossed over a very important aspect of the team he would be inheriting, maybe not to him, but definitely to the fans and the football romantics. The squad comprised reasonably of over-aged and over-paid players who might be said to have grown too comfortable in their own skin and thus questioning if they were apt for learning ‘Pep’s way’. For a Coach who was once quoted as saying ‘the key to all this is that we have fantastic footballers. No Coach, least of all me, works miracles’, this would prove to be a great oversight. Thus, began the strategic recruitment process that brought in the likes of Claudio Bravo, Ilkay Gundogan in the summer window and Gabriel Jesus, John Stones in the winter. We might not have known at the time, but the template was being laid for how this titan of the game was going to go about his business.

       Kudos to him though for sticking with a large number of the players he inherited in the hope that he could teach them or rather coach them to play his way for in hindsight he could have come in and ordered a squad clear out. He paid the price though by going for the first time in his career, on a trophy less campaign but the season seemed to prove to him that the footballers he had at his disposal or rather a vast majority of them were not good enough for what he had in mind and he had to make a move. What ensued was most daring, showcasing the ruthlessness of a serial winner who wasn’t about to lose out on the big prize for a second time. Players were moved on in a massive clear out, some were left to wind down their contracts, others were moved out on loan while a few were sold. These included Pablo Zabaleta, Aleksandar Kolarov, Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna, Eliaquiam Mangala, Fernando, Jesus Navas, Samir Nasri, Wilfred Bony, Nolito.

      The next step was true to the template that had been laid and players were brought in, a vast majority of whom seemed to follow the same peculiar pattern of being players in their early twenties, budding talents who were eager to realize their potentials and thus were supposedly believed to be receptive to learning. It is important to note that none of these players were superstars or world-beaters when they arrived at the Etihad. It is the significance of these and the impact the players have had as a group in the 2017-2018 premier league season that has inspired this write up. Not only have they won the premier league and had the belated trophy parade of Pep’s reign but they have done so by winning the hearts and minds of football lovers all over the globe with a style that is beautiful and scintillating to watch. Bewitching us regardless of location, religion or ethnicity and making us believe in such values like ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, making us believe that truly this is the beautiful game while winning supporters from neutrals be it in Asia, Africa, America or Europe. Proving the power of this game to unify.

     On paper, the line-up of Ederson, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Nicolas Otamendi, Benjamin Mendy, Fernandinho, Kelvin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus doesn’t appeal as a title winning team. Yes, it is a team brimming with potential but the world is full of individuals/talents in different walks of life that never made the grade. No one would have said at the beginning of the season that Sterling would go on to end the season as a 20 goal plus player without appearing insane, he was considered surplus to requirement that speculations were rife that he would be included in a swap deal to bring Sanchez to City or who would have foreseen that a 19 year old forward (Gabriel Jesus) who had never played outside the shores of his country would fit seamlessly into the ‘tough, physically challenging league’ that is the premier league.

      It is frightening what this team can achieve in Utopia but in Football; just as in Life, nothing is certain. Who can guarantee that when one of the ‘dreams clubs’ of Real Madrid or Barcelona come calling that the head of a player will not be turned? Or who can guarantee that in the ever-high pressure league that is the premier league that when results take a turn for the worst that Pep won’t be sent packing? Regardless of all these uncertainties, the evidence suggests that the powers that be at City are thinking long-term. Pep extended his contract recently for two more years which will see him; at the end of that contract, spending the longest period at a particular club. The majority of the title winning squad are players in their early or mid-twenties who seem willing to learn and are absorbing everything this great of the game throws at them. Ederson recently signed a new seven-year contract, Kevin De Bruyne penned a five-year deal and preparations are being made to ease the experienced players such as David Silva and Fernandinho such that the dynamic of the team is not affected. In the case of David Silva, his replacement in the long term sits in the squad as Bernando Silva while the rumour mill has it that Jorginho or Fred will be added in the close season as a long-term replacement for Fernandinho.

      You get a feel that just as the title of the Amazon behind the scene documentary of City’s 2017-2018 title winning season ‘ALL OR NOTHING’, City are bent on going ALL out to create something special and that they will accept NOTHING less.