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It’s a tough task to paint a team that has won four league championships in a row and six of the past seven as plucky little underdogs fighting the machine.
Yet that’s the mentality manager Pep Guardiola tries to preach as he makes do managing the second-richest club in the world who face big, bad bullies Arsenal this weekend in the Fubo Game of the Week.
This week marked the opening of the trial of the 115 financial charges against City — including allegations they misreported revenue, made fraudulent accounting claims and refused access to investigators and hid evidence.
Pep has used this to his advantage with his players, making out that everyone hates his team. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. There are some who hate them, but there are many more who just shrug their shoulders, find City and everything around them boring.
The City establishment and many of their fans get furious that so many rival fans put little stock in their achievements, knowing they bent the rules to outspend everyone else in racking up gaudy achievements.
Do people hate Real Madrid? Manchester United? Liverpool? Even Arsenal? Absolutely. But, for most, City represents the dreadful reality of sportswashing rich men — they want to buy their achievements and that brings with it a lack of respect.
There’s no doubting City are behemoths on the pitch, however they got there. In their quest for a record fifth Premier League in a row, they’re already alone as the only team to win their first four games after Liverpool’s shock loss to Nottingham Forest last week.
But despite the Sky Blues doing something no club ever has done before, to many with a historical perspective beyond the latest EA Sports Ultimate Team update, don’t revere them the way they did Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United teams or Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal teams or even Sir Bob Paisley’s Liverpool teams.
Because, despite the outcome of these 115 charges, people will still simply think the money thrown into the City project creates an uneven playing field.
So, that means everyone outside of the City fan base will be supporting Arsenal this weekend, right? No, and I’m not talking about Spurs fans.
There’s an interesting phenomenon around City. You’ll find Liverpool, United, Arsenal, Chelsea fans who want City to win again because they know people don’t respect their titles. So they’d rather a plastic City championship than see a true rival win.
United fans hate Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea fans hate Arsenal. They’d all rather see a team no one takes seriously win yet another title than their hated rival.
So, how does that match up on the pitch this weekend against Arsenal?
Arsenal pulled off an impressive win last weekend at Spurs despite missing several key players. They will be without captain Martin Odegaard for weeks with his ankle injury suffered on international duty which turned out to be more serious than first thought, but they get midfield tank Declan Rice back from suspension.
It’s asking an awful lot of Arsenal to play at Spurs and then at City so early in the season, but if they can avoid defeat, they’ll have two of their toughest fixtures of the season behind them before we’re out of September.
They are expected to have Bukayo Saka available after he limped out of the Spurs match.
What also complicates matters is the new Champions League format, which has added games and spreads the schedule onto days other than Tuesdays and Wednesdays. City played an uninspired 0-0 draw at home against Inter Milan on Wednesday, while Arsenal had to travel to Italy to face Atalanta on Thursday, giving them a travel day and 24 hours less rest.
While Erling Haaland has nine goals in just four league matches, he was held without a single chance against Inter and Arsenal centre back William Saliba reminded everyone Arsenal are far from intimidated by the Norweigian’s sparkling start after having kept him off the score sheet in three matches last year.
“He is a great player,” Saliba said. “One of the best in the world. It is difficult to play against him, but last season we gave everything to stop him from scoring and he didn’t succeed.”
Aston Villa wary of the Newcastle trap
Aston Villa returned to the Champions League in impressive fashion, beating Young Boys 3-0.
Newcastle were last year’s fresh entrants into the Champions League and looked unable to manage the demands, having a dismal campaign and not making the knockout phase while also struggling greatly in the league.
While Villa is in good shape in fifth place, Newcastle is thriving without the weight of the Champions League, level with second-place Arsenal on 10 points.
On Saturday, Villa gets Wolves, who are off to a dreadful start with one point off four matches and were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Brighton on Wednesday. Newcastle travels to London to face mid-table Fulham, who are the epitome of average — one win, two draws, one loss, four goals scored, four goals against.
Liverpool bouncing back against Bournemouth
In one of the shock results of the season, Liverpool — which looked so good in its first three matches — lost at home to Nottingham Forest.
While Forest has rightly been lauded for such a great performance, Liverpool was the better team, it just couldn’t break down the compact Forest setup which clogged the middle and then poached the winner on a counterattack.
Bournemouth plays a bit more open, but it’s Liverpool 3-41 thrashing of AC Milan in Italy in their Champions League opener that should offer hope to supporters.
Manager Arne Slot rotated players for the first time, giving Dutch striker Cody Gakpo a start and he was dangerous all night. Liverpool dominated the match after giving up a goal in the third minute and it could have been a much gaudier final score.
Chelsea quietly steadying the ship
While the stories at the start of the season were about the bloated squad and some brutal management dealing with so many players by Enzo Maresca, the Blues quietly have slotted into eighth place and only Manchester City has scored more goals.
But we’re about to find out how they really fit into the grander scheme. After West Ham this weekend, the Blues play Brighton, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Arsenal. Manchester United are the only one out of that group that is below Chelsea in the table.
How they navigate this stretch will tell us everything about how their season will shape up.
This weekend’s slate
Saturday: West Ham v. Chelsea; Aston Villa v. Wolves; Fulham v. Newcastle; Leicester v. Everton; Liverpool v. Bournemouth; Southampton v. Ipswich; Tottenham v. Brentford; Crystal Palace v. Manchester United.
SUNDAY: Brighton v. Nottingham Forest; Manchester City v. Arsenal.