Manchester City has had quite the tempestuous campaign. While their Premier League form has been inconsistent, to be nice, injuries have been a consistent presence in City’s life. Their manager is doing his best with his lame duck status, knowing his replacement has already been named. Turmoil around the future of many of their core, most notably Yaya Toure, is still an everyday back page affair. Their FA Cup journey came to a screeching halt with a 5-1 drubbing from Chelsea. Still, City find themselves in striking distance of an unprecedented run of success for the club. They are just nine points off the Premier League lead, a daunting yet not irreversible deficit, with a game in hand. They are 3-1 up on Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League after the first leg. Most of all, they already have silverware to their name after defeating Liverpool in the Capital One Cup final on Sunday. Manchester City can use that win as a launching pad for a late season push at a treble on the blue side of Manchester.
In the league, Manchester City have twelve games left to catch up to Leicester City and leap frog both Tottenham and Arsenal in the process. They only have a head to head left with Arsenal on the second to last week of the season, having completed their season series with the other two title chasers. There is very little resistance looming in the remainder of those dozen games.
Their game in hand is against Newcastle, a team they beat 6-1 earlier in the year and quite frankly City could have scored more. Aston Villa is providing no challenge for anybody these days and has all but resided themselves to relegation. Norwich City, Bournemouth and Swansea City are just outside that zone, each within two games of the drop. All three will host Man City over the season’s final months. Outside of Arsenal, the hardest game left for City is the latest installment of the Manchester Derby. While Old Trafford played host to a snoozer, the Etihad could see a title shifting tie with two now reinvigorated clubs.
A third Premier League crown in five years would be nice, but Manchester City has their sights set on staking a claim as one of Europe’s elite clubs. That would mean getting deep into the Champions League. As stated earlier, City have themselves a fairly stable cushion on Dynamo Kiev as the proceedings head back to England. Since their infusion of cash in the early part of the decade, City has been chided for their inability to advance in European competitions. A win against the Ukranians would put City in rarefied European air for them, and partially silence many of those critics.
A quarterfinal appearance in the Champions League has never occurred for Manchester City. You have to go back to 2009 for a final eight showing of any kind from the club. That year they were beaten in that round of the UEFA Cup by German club Hamburg. To find a time where City progressed past that, one would have to look all the way to the Cup Winner’s Cup win and semifinal appearance in the early 70’s. The quarterfinal draw could once again prove troublesome as heavyweights Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, and the winner of Bayern Munich and Juventus still lurk. But this stage, with these teams, is what City have striven for.
The League Cup Final showed that they are finally starting to get completely healthy. Vincent Kompany’s anchoring of the backline is most important. The Belgian captain’s absence has been a proverbial back breaker for one of the strongest spines in the Premier League. Against Liverpool his influence was on full display. His pairing with Nicolas Otamendi gave the Argentinian international the confidence to be the player that City splurged £28.5 million on. Kompany’s sheer presence allowed Fernando and Fernandinho the freedom to be the midfield forces they have so few times been in 2015-16. And he may not particularly need it, but Sergio Aguero’s performances always seem to take an uptick when City’s defense is at full strength.
Manchester City may be a punchline when it comes to the upper crust of European footballing powers, but they are not to be taken lightly in England. This final stretch will broaden the scope of that respect. Leicester may be the “City” of the season in the Barclays Premier League, but you can take it to the bank that the one primed to make the most noise this spring is in Manchester.