Football – EPL | Matter of when Man City wins title and how many records fall

Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero (left) celebrates with teammates after scoring during an English Premier League football match

English football has never seen a team so utterly dominant as Manchester City entering the packed Christmas program.

There seems little doubt Pep Guardiola will be raising the Premier League trophy for the first time in May. It is just a question of when City will wrap up its third title since 2014, and how many records will tumble on the way.

City has already reeled off the most consecutive English top-flight wins — a record extended at the weekend to 17 games.

Manchester United’s record Premier League title-winning margin of 18 points from 2000 could also be under threat. And England could be looking at its third unbeaten “Invincibles” team after Preston in 1888-89 and Arsenal in 2003-04.

So it doesn’t bode well for a compelling second half of the Premier League season? Think again.

The chase for the other three Champions League spots should be fierce with eight points separating second-place Manchester United and Arsenal in sixth. Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham are in the mix among them. Two leading sides will fall by the wayside and be denied a place among the European elite.

The battle to stay in the world’s richest soccer league is also intense. No team is stranded at the bottom, with Swansea in 20th place only six points behind Southampton in 13th.

A closer look at the first half of the season:

TITLE RACE

City leads by 13 points at the halfway stage after winning 18 of its 19 games and drawing one in the best ever start to a Premier League season. The only dropped points came at home to Everton in the second game on Aug. 21, when City played more than a half with 10 men following Kyle Walker’s sending-off.

Guardiola won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich in late March in 2014 — aided by a winning streak of 19 games never before seen in a major European league.

It will be tough for Guardiola to win the title that early in England as he chases a quadruple after finishing his first season at the club without a trophy. City is already through to the League Cup semifinals, into the Champions League last 16 and begins its FA Cup campaign in two weeks.

Man United is in second place, with defending champion Chelsea three points further back in third. United manager Jose Mourinho says the title race is still on, but the rest of his peers among the chasing pack don’t see City faltering now.

It will be intriguing how Mourinho reacts to be seeing his title ambitions further fade in his second season at United, having already opted to publicly call out his “childish” players after a draw at Leicester on Saturday.

EMERGING TALENT

Amid an offseason of record spending in English soccer, little was made of Watford signing Richarlison from Brazilian team Fluminense for 13 million pounds (USD17 million).

Yet the 20-year-old forward is proving a bargain, settling in quickly to the pace and intensity of the Premier League and being one of the key factors in Watford’s impressive start to the season that, at one stage, saw them challenging around the top four.

Richarlison told ESPN Brazil this month: “Teams are already marking me individually, they are putting two players there on my side.”

Chelsea and Tottenham have been linked with the Brazil under-
20s player, who has yet to earn a call-up to the senior squad. That appears only a matter of time.

Other players to break through this season are Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen, the Danish center back who has ousted David Luiz, and Liverpool’s Joe Gomez, the right back who has ensured long-
term injury absentee Nathaniel Clyne hasn’t been missed.

SURPRISE TEAM

An unfashionable club is mixing it with the heavyweights of the Premier League against all the odds. We’ve heard this before, right?

Two years ago, it was Leicester delivering a soccer fairy tale by somehow winning the league. Now it’s Burnley’s turn to provide the feel-good story of the season.

Widely regarded as a relegation candidate at the start of the season, Burnley is currently seventh. Don’t rule Burnley out of staying in the tussle for the Champions League qualification places, with Liverpool only three points better off in fourth. The northwest team hasn’t finished a season higher than sixth place in the top flight since 1974.

Burnley, which has conceded just 15 goals in 19 games, has already beaten Chelsea away and drawn at Tottenham and Liverpool. Not bad for a team that returned a profit of about $20 million in summer player sales when most of the rest of the Premier League was spending freely.

POINTS TO PROVE

In the dugout, these are testing times for two British managers: Alan Pardew and Mark Hughes.

Pardew succeeded Tony Pulis a month ago with a mission to keep West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League. Then the Baggies were two points above the bottom three. Now they are next-from-bottom after collecting only two points from Pardew’s first five games.

Hughes’ future appears on a knife-edge at Stoke despite a pressure-relieving victory over West Brom on Saturday that hauled the team three points from the danger zone. MDT/AP