How City found winning formula at the perfect time

Pep Guardiola is a creature of habit and it’s that time of year again when the run-in team has been cemented. The Manchester City manager has settled on City’s starting XI and, in previous seasons, that barely alters in the final sprint to the finish.

Since the March international break, Guardiola has started just 12 different players across three matches. One of those was a cup match – the 4-0 win over Liverpool – in which James Trafford featured and excelled. Going back one game further, Nathan Ake came in for a cup-tied Marc Guehi in the Carabao Cup final. So it’s 13 players in four matches since Real Madrid knocked them out of the Champions League.

Were these a quartet of Premier League games rather than a couple in the domestic cups, it’s highly likely that Guardiola would have picked the exact same line-up all the way through.

The 1-1 draw at West Ham on March 14 was a trigger, when City were dominant throughout but couldn’t unpick the home defence. Guardiola has since ditched the two up front – Omar Marmoush started at the London Stadium – and a box midfield that served them fairly well while the wingers were injured in January and that he carried on with while Jeremy Doku found his rhythm.

The tactical shifts kept City in touch with Arsenal while they dealt with form and fitness issues. Guardiola has described finding different solutions this year as ‘fun’, while admitting that a team of newer faces would rather have more consistency in selection.

They have that now, with Rayan Cherki the big driving factor in it all. Cherki sitting in the No 10 position means Nico O’Reilly has reverted to left back, nudging out Rayan Ait-Nouri, and brings Doku back into the fold on the wing.

There is a balance and more certainty to their play, with Guehi and Abdukodir Khusanov striking up a strong partnership in the centre of defence in the persistent absence of Ruben Dias, who has already missed a month with a hamstring problem. It’ll be interesting to see if Dias regains his place when he is available next month.

Before the 3-0 win at Stamford Bridge, an afternoon when Cherki dazzled, he had started only four of the previous 10 league games. Guardiola has since unleashed him. Over the season, he has registered a goal or assist every 104 minutes in all competitions. Major numbers for a new signing in a new league.

Across the last four matches? One every 80 minutes – three assists and a goal. City have found a way to embolden the French magician, even if Guardiola did play down his chances of scooping Player of the Year on Sunday.

In early January, Guardiola was walking around City’s training ground in a stinking mood. A bear with a sore head, believing that missed chances would come to define this season – one of great promise that at the very least would set them up for years to come.

Three draws in a week, six dropped points, against Sunderland, Chelsea and Brighton, had directed the title towards north London. But it wasn’t so much the results that had got under Guardiola’s skin. The manner of them were the major cause for frustration.

At Sunderland, City created an expected goals (xG) total of 2.24. They scored zero in a 0-0 draw. Against Calum McFarlane’s Chelsea, they scored one from an xG of 1.02. When Brighton walked away from the Etihad with a point, City found the net once from an xG of 2.55.

Two goals when the statistics would predict them to score between five and six. Some of the missed opportunities were glaring, open goals, lacking composure and added to that were careless final passes that wouldn’t even register on the expected goals metric.

That is a week that Guardiola has constantly referenced recently and the last few will receive plenty of airtime too, because City have been at their blistering best.   

As a comparison, City have outperformed their xG in all of the run of four victories they are currently on. They would be expected to notch between seven and eight from those matches and have scored 11. These are the margins.

When Haaland walked out to speak with reporters in his sliders on Sunday night, he admitted for the first time that his fitness has perhaps not been quite right over recent months. It has been obvious watching him but Haaland, those around him and City have been keen to play down any issues. Guardiola has suggested that the striker’s been ‘exhausted’ but then claimed tiredness is in the mind.   

Norway and their head coach Stale Solbakken take a heap of credit for their handling of him over the international break. They have a close relationship with City, sports therapist Mario Pafundi following Haaland when away with the national team, and it was decided that he could sit out the first March friendly against the Netherlands in Amsterdam.   

He went to visit Dr Ramon Cugat in Barcelona and linked up with his Norway team-mates for a home draw with Switzerland, playing just over an hour. Given Solbakken is leading the country into a first World Cup since 1998, he could have demanded that his talisman was available for fine-tuning in the last camp before the tournament. But the decision appears to have served all parties well, with Haaland back possessing that menacing streak that puts fear into defenders. 

A hat-trick against Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-final and a winner over Arsenal is a return to goalscoring form, while his bruising encounter with Gabriel – during which Haaland came out on top – was reminiscent of the powerful displays of aggression during the Treble season.