Manchester City’s pursuit of perfection goes on as Liverpool highlight flaws

Pep Guardiola said he didn’t want a “second of sadness” from his Manchester City side after Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Liverpool, but he also acknowledged his side had “missed an opportunity” to take a four-point lead in the title race. And that was surely as it was. xG models vary, but all had City as the victor, some by as much as 0.9 goals. And that is part of the oddity of this City: that dominance speaks of their extreme quality, but the failure to take advantage also hints at vulnerability.

All of this, of course, should be prefaced by saying that City are a great side. So too are Liverpool. These are not just exceptional teams in the context of 2021-22 but in historical terms. City will win the league if they win their final seven games of the season, something that seems entirely possible – after all, they won twice that number in a row at the end of the 2018-19 season to hold Liverpool off. If they do win those seven, they will finish on 95 points. Only four teams in league history have ever got more than that – Liverpool and City twice each in the past four years.

That inevitably adds a sense of the absurd to any talk of weakness. These are not flaws in a way football history has ever previously understood them. These are teams breaking records that have stood for well over a century. (And yes, it is reasonable to point out that, geniuses as Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp are, and brilliant as these players are, the financial structures that have facilitated that level of domination are unhealthy, even if it’s probable that the points tallies of champions will fall back by five or 10 points when they are gone). But still, until there is perfection, there will be quibbles.

City have not had the lower xG in the