After a shaky start to the 20/21 Premier League Season, a revitalised Manchester City are well on their way to adding another PL title to their name.
Over the last few years, Man City have consistently been in and around the conversation of Premier League Title contenders, having won the title four times in the last decade, and having not fallen out of the top 4 in the same amount of time.
Their title contention however seemed to be in question early on in the season with a spotty record that saw City only winning four games in their first 10 matches. Losses to Leicester and Tottenham made many believe that Gaurdiola’s men may produce a season to forget.
City’s inconsistent start to the league was worsened by the fact that star talisman Sergio Aguero was out of action from an injury he had sustained in the season prior, leaving their much-feared attack less sharp than it has come to be known in the Gaurdiola era.
While Christmas saw an improved run of form thanks to a fantastic set of defensive performances inspired by new signing Ruben Dias, a COVID-19 outbreak sidelined 9 players who were required to isolate. This again harmed City’s attack, as two of the players required to quarantine were Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus.
Despite these significant setbacks, City’s improved form was sustained into the beginning of 2021, which saw them win all of their games across all competitions in January, the most in the top four tiers of English Football since the establishment of the football league over a century ago.
In doing so City jumped from 9th to 1st in the Premier League, reached an EFL Cup Final and progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Their phenomenal form continued in February, where again they enjoyed an unbeaten month in the Premier League, further staking their claim on the much-coveted Premier League Title, while other title contenders, such as Liverpool and Tottenham began dropping further and further out of the title conversation.
Betting sites in South Africa have marked City as clear favourites to win the 20/21 Premier League title, giving Guardiola’s men odds between 1.00 and 1.12. City are also favourites to win the FA cup, with South African betting sites giving them odds of 2.30.
While it looked unlikely from the offset, this has been a year in which City have broken old records and set new ones. They managed to extend their unbeaten run to 21 games, the most for a top-flight team in English football history. They further managed to secure their first victory at Anfield in almost two decades.
Their unbeaten run came to an end when they faced cross-town rivals Manchester United in a 0-2 defeat at the Etihad on 7 March 2021.
While football will always be an inherently unpredictable game, the fact that City are 11 points ahead at this point in the season has bookmakers believing that they will make it 3 titles from four seasons, with only a potential catastrophe standing in the way of their chances of being crowned 20/21 Premier League Champions.
