Manchester City: Villa Win Just What Was Needed

Manchester City rebound with a 4-0 win against Aston Villa at the Etihad. Will this mean a turnaround for their fortunes going forward?

Crisis? What crisis? Manchester City won their last game 4-0 don’t you know? Ah the emotional rollercoaster ride that is football, taking us to the dizzying heights, freefalling us to the depths and showing us another climb thereafter. That sounds like I’ve just described an entire season, but for Citizens that was just this week.

We had the high, the Capital One Cup final when we felt, perhaps against our better judgement, on top of the world. Then a few days later we sunk to the depths at the hand of a revenge killing by Liverpool, contents of stomach be damned. Finally the ride tilted upwards once more with the more recent victory at the Etihad to Aston Villa. And they say a week is a long time in politics.

It may not be time to take the bags off your heads just yet gents, for, let’s face it, it’s only Aston Villa. You know, bottom of the table Aston Villa, relegated already Aston Villa, beat them 4-0 back at the start of a woefully bad February Aston Villa, would fancy my own chances at grabbing a goal against them Aston Villa. It’s not a terribly big accomplishment to beat a team who have lost 6 of their last 7 games and have a goal difference on the year of -33.

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Though, actually, that may well be the point. Manchester City are coming off a pretty bad run of form, Capital One Cup heroics excepted. In their last six league games they’ve won two, drawn one and lost three. Some 7 points out of a possible 18, that’s hardly championship stuff, indeed, it’s about good on it’s own for 15^th in the table, a spot currently held by Crystal Palace. Yay?

Even so, two of those losses came against hungry competition for the title like Leicester and Spurs, the draw was against 5^th place West Ham United and the final loss, as mentioned above, was at an Anfield calling for blood. With a number of key injuries and a further number of struggling positional players, Manuel Pellegrini needed an Aston Villa punching bag to get an easy, if not guaranteed three points.

It’s like the powers that be looked down from on high and saw City’s struggles and decreed “Thou shalt have Aston Villa, Norwich City and Bournemouth in the league.” And thus it is. All this comes at the perfect time for Manchester City. A run of poor results and difficult losses in the league has seen them fall from second to fourth and almost entirely out of contention. Even with today’s win they remain 7 points adrift from the top spot and thoughts now must surely concentrate on keeping the Champions League Qualifying spot.

This is key for so many reasons. Pep Guardiola is coming this summer, this much is assured, but his hands will be unnecessarily tied if City aren’t playing Champions League football next season. The best players in the world, understandably, want to play in the best competition in the world. With City out of it, well, there’s always other options. It has been said summer target Paul Pogba could be moved to think again were the Sky Blues looking only to the Europa League. I mean, he can always go to teams like say, Barcelona, so no big loss for him.

Either which way, for all the bad luck Pellegrini’s side have had this year the fixtures may actually be considered quite kind to them from this point on. What Manchester City need to establish is some form and Villa/Norwich are the perfect cannon fodder. Meanwhile, City’s title competitors continue to fight it out amongst themselves, such as in today’s heated draw between Arsenal and Spurs. Two points gained puts City 5 points off second with a game in hand, not unthinkable.

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It’s been a topsy-turvy season, full of ups and downs, and this week really encapsulated it. What it shows most prominently is that this Manchester City has the potential but it’s not always being fully realised. The next few games, if City take the opportunity, should give them a chance to turn the tide and who knows where they’ll end up if they do? It aint over til it’s over, unless of course you’re Aston Villa, in which case it’s probably over. Regardless, it’s still too early to get off this ride and who’s to say we won’t see those dizzying heights yet again before it’s over?