THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE is an extract from ‘Standing Alone’
Is it still too soon? It might be a while before the pain fades but, without going fully ‘York away’ about it, Manchester City didn’t have a bad old season, did they?
Expectations are much higher now than when City travelled to Bootham Crescent, and lost 2-1, as a mid-table third division side in December 1998; the players are some of the best in the world, the manager is a genius, so the argument that things were much worse in years gone isn’t really applicable.
Losing Saturday’s Champions League final to Chelsea, particularly in that manner, was galling. It’s impossible to dismiss the feeling that this season could’ve been so much better. And with the Premier League title triumph so well analysed, celebrated so joyously the previous weekend and stored away in club history, it is hard to look past what happened in Porto less than 72 hours ago. It’s still raw.
As one homebound fan at the airport afterwards put it, “I’m not angry, I’m just sad.” The two trophies City won this season are little consolation when those emotions are in play. That’s football.
And yet, it’s also impossible to overlook all the factors that led to City playing 61 out of a possible 62 games this season, coming closer to winning every trophy up for grabs than any English club has ever managed.
Pep Guardiola’s reaction to the defeat has been similar: last season, when City were eliminated by Lyon, he didn’t speak to the players at all, but at the weekend he went around the squad to congratulate them on a fine season, although the pain of how it ended was evident.
Maybe in a few days it will all be easier to digest. Rival fans will hold onto Porto forever but few clubs are ready to challenge City, as long as they make the necessary changes to their squad this summer. It was certainly the case over the duration of the season.
City are brilliant and while losing Saturday’s final was crushing, it can’t whitewash the previous six months of good work, the years before that, or the feeling they can go even further next season.
There is a new, traumatic chapter to City and Guardiola’s Champions League story but the fact remains they got further in the competition than they had done previously, and they deserved to do so. They showed us things along their route to the final that were worth enjoying at the time and that bode well for the future.
It does sound a bit like loser talk but before this season, people wondered if they would ever get past a European quarter-final under Guardiola. Inevitably, that adds to the sense that the final was a big opportunity wasted (because it was), but it’s still easy to see growth and huge potential.
All the positive stuff previously said about this team still applies. Their mid-season turnaround remains mightily impressive. If it weren’t for that, they wouldn’t have been playing Chelsea in Porto in the first place. If it weren’t for that turnaround, Guardiola and City would have bigger problems to deal with this summer than they do. And if it weren’t for Guardiola, City wouldn’t have won so many trophies over the past five years.
He might infuriate with his selections once or twice per season, but it looks like that’s just part of the deal with him. The rest of it is pretty sweet. There’s nobody around who could do the job better.
It’s like Kevin De Bruyne playing poorly in the final: you wouldn’t swap him for anybody anyway, so you just have to accept it. It doesn’t mean he’s not a great player. Lionel Messi hasn’t won a World Cup. The original Ronaldo never won the Champions League. Sometimes football works like this.
Yes, it’s hard now, perhaps even pointless, to go back over the particulars of everything that led up to Saturday night. But City still won 21 games in a row in all competitions, City still had the Premier League’s best defence and the best attack, City still kept the most clean sheets in the division, Guardiola still sat down with his inner circle and found a way, in the darkest moments of the season, to turn everything around in the blink of an eye; he defied expectations and took City back to the top of the Premier League and further than expected in Europe, finding a way to dominate games without a striker, to play attractive yet resilient football. Why didn’t he just do it one more time in Porto?! Ah, that feeling will never go away.
But Phil Foden still scored that fine goal in a 4-1 win at Anfield, Ruben Dias still won the writers’ Footballer of the Year award in his debut season, Bernardo Silva still enchanted fans with his industrious performances, Riyad Mahrez still showed his full potential, Ilkay Gundogan still reminded us why he’s so important, John Stones still delighted fans with his comeback, Fernandinho still rolled back the years, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Rodri still shook off last season’s doubts, there were still fans at Wembley to see City win the Carabao Cup for the fourth time in a row, there were even more of them at the Etihad to see City lift their third champions’ trophy in four years, after a game where they still saw Sergio Aguero come on and score twice in his farewell Premier League appearance – one of the most special, emotional moments the stadium has ever witnessed.
That all happened. So did that disaster in Porto.
It was a great season, it was a disappointing season.
The two things will just have to live hand in hand.
MAY RESULTS
Premier League, May 1, 2021
Crystal Palace 0 Man City 2
Man City scorers: Aguero 57, Torres 59
Champions League, May 4, 2021
Man City 2 Paris Saint-Germain 0
Man City scorers: Mahrez 11, 63
Premier League, May 8, 2021
Man City 1 Chelsea 2
Man City scorers: Sterling 44
Premier League, May 14, 2021
Newcastle 3 Man City 4
Man City scorers: Cancelo 39, Torres 42, 64, 66
Premier League, May 18, 2021
Brighton 3 Man City 2
Man City scorers: Gundogan 2, Foden 48
Premier League, May 23, 2021
Man City 5 Everton 0
Man City scorers: De Bruyne 11, Jesus 14, Foden 53, Aguero 71, 76
Champions League, May 29, 2021
Man City 0 Chelsea 1
Standing Alone: Stories of Heroism and Heartbreak from Manchester City’s 2020/21 Title-Winning Season by Sam Lee, Daniel Taylor and Oliver Kay is published by Polaris. More info here.
