When a match includes nine goals, a couple of injuries, a gesture that may result in a ban for one star player, an on-pitch row involving a £42.5 million (Dh254.9m) signing and a demolition of the league leaders, some of the most pertinent comments can be overlooked. Too much has happened.
And so it was when, after Manchester City's 6-3 thrashing of his former club Arsenal, Samir Nasri said: "Listen, we are going to try and break records."
Continue in the same vein and some could be smashed. City have scored 47 goals in 16 games, suggesting they could surge past Chelsea’s Premier League best of 103 in 2009/10. Even more remarkably, they have 35 in eight home matches. The division’s record, of 68, is also held by Carlo Ancelotti’s Chelsea.
Not since the 1930s, when attitudes to defending were rather lax, has a top-flight team averaged more goals a game on their own turf.
It is all the more remarkable as City’s victims have included some of the elite. Arsenal arrived at the Etihad Stadium with England’s best defensive record and were hit for six. So were Tottenham, who had previously conceded only one goal on the road. Manchester United conceded four, and it could have been more. So did Newcastle United, who have gone on to prove themselves one of the most accomplished sides in the country.
It is almost an understatement to say that Manuel Pellegrini’s group are shaping up to be one of the finest attacking teams in Premier League history.
They have the power and pace of Yaya Toure and Fernandinho, athletes with an eye for goal, the elusiveness and invention of David Silva and Nasri, the creative kindred spirits, and the intuitive, instinctive understanding between Alvaro Negredo and Sergio Aguero.
In the age of lone forwards, they are an advertisement for the merits of a strike partnership. They have started 11 games together and delivered 22 goals in those matches. It is a staggering return and, although Aguero’s calf injury means they will be separated for a while, their eventual reunion should fill defenders with dread.
And yet, while the rout of Arsenal catapulted City into the status of title favourites, they are only fourth in the table. Much has been made, rightly, of their mediocre away form and most of their tougher trips – to Newcastle, Tottenham, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton – come in the final four months of the season. They have failed simpler tests on the road and, if they are to regain the title, they will have to do it the hard way.
There is more than just trophies at stake. The rest of the season will dictate how this team is remembered.
Holland’s beaten finalists in the 1974 World Cup have gone down in history as beautiful “nearly” men. With a more pragmatic attitude in England, many runners-up are dismissed as failures.
Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool team, who earned 86 points and played superbly in 2008/09, had their achievements acknowledged really only on Merseyside.
Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle, who were overhauled by United 13 years earlier, are condemned for their frailties, rather than congratulated for their flair.
And, by the by, while they are remembered as reckless attackers, they scored only 66 league goals, a total City are on course to overtake by the end of January.
It is as though Bill Shankly’s famous quote – “if you’re second, you are nothing” – has entered the collective mindset. Even if you are first, you don’t always win the argument.
City were champions 19 months ago and scored 93 goals, a fact those who branded Roberto Mancini “defensive” tend to ignore, and probably have not received the credit they deserved. Goals, however, are not everything: Ancelotti managed Chelsea’s most prolific champions, but their most accomplished side was Jose Mourinho’s outfit who won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.
The other great Premier League teams – United’s classes of 1994, 1999 and 2008, Arsenal’s of 1998 and 2004 – were not defined just by the facts and figures, either. They had success, but the statistics are only part of the picture. They had an aura and left a legacy.
And so the ultimate challenge for City’s awesome attackers is not to break records but to prove their mettle and get their medals in the style of the outstanding sides.
sports@thenational.ae
