BEVERLY HILLS, March 17, (THEWILL) – The hopes for an unprecedented quadruple for English Premier League side Manchester City continued apace in Tuesday night’s UEFA Champions League return leg fixture as the Blues of Manchester defeated Bundesliga’s 10th-placed side Borussia Monchengladbach 2-0.
Not only did City seal a 4-0 aggregate triumph in the last 16 of the competition to advance to the final eight, Pep Guardiola’s charges became just the third team in Champions League history to keep seven consecutive clean sheets in the rejigged defensive advanced play that has become the City pattern since the turn of the year.
In the annals of Champions League history, only north London club Arsenal have bettered City’s mark of clean sheets with their 10 straight unbreached matches that ended in April 2006. Tied for second with City is AC Milan, who entered the standout when they recorded seven shutouts in a row, ending in April 2005.
Much like Thomas Tuchel’s impressive backline, since the German took office at Stamford Bridge, City’s impregnable UCL wall is led by centre-backs John Stones, Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte and can rightly be seen as Guardiola’s crown jewel in the desert of the Etihad side for the pursuit of victories. For the tenacity of the trio, City remains in contention for the nigh-implausible quadruple.
They are considered “Champions-in-Waiting” in the Premiership, and are widely held as favourites to claim the FA Cup, for which they are quarter-finalists and the Carabao Cup final, which they will compete for against Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, April 25 at Wembley Stadium, Wembley. Can Mourinho’s men stop the dream?
Their advance in these Cup competitions was unforeseen at the start of the campaign this season especially with how poorly they fared in the EPL. Guardiola was especially written off as the injury to Sergio Aguero did not help with the match to goal ratio the team was putting out. However, after committing himself to the City project with an extension of his contract to 2023, the Spaniard set to work, tweaking several aspects of the team’s play beginning from defense.
Since then, Guardiola’s side has been nearly unbeatable. They have won 24 of their last 25 matches in all competitions with a painful loss to city rivals Manchester United on Sunday, Match 7, at the Etihad, the only blemish in a remarkable run of victories. For these wins, City’s backline of Stones, Dias and Laporte deserve credit.
Six clean sheets became seven with that 2-0 win over Borussia Monchengladbach on Tuesday night because of the resilient defending that these men have committed themselves to in the new Guardiola project. Their win confirms their spot in the last-eight of the Champions League for the fourth successive year. Very few now underrate their form, in Europe and domestically and fewer still will think the Quadruple, that has never been considered possible before, is just a pipe dream.
However, as much as the media hypes up the actually true possibility of realising this special objective, there is one man who desperately wants to keep his eye on the mark and not be distracted by lofty targets. Guardiola has been warning his players against talking up the prospect of what it will be like to become the first quadruple club.
The manager has gone as far as to openly and publicly admonish Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Zinchenko, a Ukrainian who joined City during the summer of 2016 from Russian side Football Club Ufa, for daring to dream about it in a press conference on Monday. Guardiola sees the damage looking that far ahead can have on complacency and so far into the season, with everything the team has put in to be where they are, the last thing he wants is complacency from any of his charges.
About this very fact, Guardiola had this to say: “What is important is don’t look further and just look at the next one. Today we spoke about that. Don’t think about the [Champions League] quarter-finals, think about the process and what you have to do to win the game, and this is the best way. After, we will see what happens.”
City need five wins from the eight remaining matches to secure the points, irrespective of how the other matches fare, and to retake the league title. If other sides, such as United or Leicester slip up, then he will not need those many points in the end. Coincidentally, the men from the Etihad travel to the King Power Stadium at the beginning of April in their first fixture after the international break. There will be points dropped but who will do the dropping is the question. And can it stop City?
In all, as they enter the lot for the next round of European elite football competition on the 4-0 aggregate victory over Monchengladbach, City can progress with the confidence that their historical chance to upend the books with a quadruple remains firmly on course. Is there any side enough to derail their course? And can it be truly derailed?
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