This season is a reminder of how hard it is to dominate the Premier League

SSometimes the only explanation that makes sense is that football is not governed by the laws of physics, by data, xG and logic, but that it is in fact an evil deity, capricious and mischievous, and that sometimes it turns on you and that’s really not the case. a lot can be done.

The Manchester derby had been a largely dreadful match between two faltering sides, lacking confidence and conviction, poking and prodding and giving little indication that they were the two most successful clubs in the history of the Premier League. But City had had all three shots on target in the first half and in that sense were worth the lead when Joško Gvardiol headed in Kevin De Bruyne’s deflected cross, a goal that would have seemed bizarre had it not been the goal. The eighth United conceded a corner this season, and the fourth under Ruben Amorim.

But in the second half United tried to play, without looking particularly hard at it; Not city. They froze. United kept going, although Amad Diallo was the only player who looked remotely dangerous. Even then, all indications were that it would be a shabby 1-0 win for City, which would have moved them to within six points of leaders Liverpool and perhaps restored morale.

But then Matheus Nunes missed a backpass, allowing Diallo to slip in, before compounding the error with a reckless attempt to regain possession and concede a penalty. Bruno Fernandes, after what was undoubtedly his worst game in a United shirt, converted the penalty. Nunes had initially been deployed at left-back as part of a Guardiola rejig, an attempt to discover a new combination that could restore a sense of calm. It was a selection to recall some of Guardiola’s stranger decisions before big European games, but if he overthinks the games against this United team he is truly doomed.

Once one United goal had been scored, there was a strange inevitability to the second: a long punt, a simple diagonal run from Diallo between two centre-backs far too far apart, an expansive first touch past Ederson and then a volley -finish. of impeccable cruelty, seeping softly between Gvardiol’s legs. None of it was explainable: but some distant mind has decided that Guardiola must suffer, that after so many years of unparalleled success, of coldly rational positionpositionhe must experience in one concentrated version the feeling of helplessness that is familiar to most managers.

On October 29, Erik ten Hag was fired as manager of Manchester United. The next day, City lost to Tottenham in the Carabao Cup – a night whose dark significance was underlined by the fact that Timo Werner scored. Since Ten Hag’s departure, City have lost eight of eleven, beating only Nottingham Forest; Imagine where they would be if Jim Ratcliffe had been decisive enough to replace him this summer.

And so we have a Premier League in which, with Liverpool and Arsenal both stuttering this weekend, it is Chelsea – chaotic Chelsea, with their ridiculously bloated squad, treading a PSR tightrope – who appear to be the ruthless winners, a plot twist that no one saw arrive. . It is one of those seasons that reminds us how difficult it is, even with the financial advantages enjoyed by the elite, to dominate as City – and to a lesser extent Arsenal and Liverpool – have done in recent years. The Premier League’s mid-table, not just Aston Villa and Tottenham, but also Brighton and Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest and Brentford, is of extremely high quality. Suddenly, fascinatingly, every game seems packed with possibilities – as it should be.

But the focus remains on City because the meltdown is so spectacular and so unexpected. Legs and heart have become one. It’s like sitting in Rome in 410 and watching the Visigoths pour over the horizon, an empire collapsing in real time. If this can perish, as St. Jerome then wrote, what can ever be safe? City will start winning again at some point, but the damage has already been done and the image may never return.

Their instant fixture list wouldn’t normally seem overly burdensome: Villa away, Everton at home, Leicester away, West Ham at home. But Villa, strange as they have been of late, beat City in an evenly matched match last season – a match that could ultimately be seen as an early indication that the days of Guardiola’s hegemony were numbered – and what’s more, City now look capable of losing to anyone.

Could Guardiola leave? It’s a ridiculous thought given how much he has won and how centered the City project is on him, but managers don’t usually recover from runs like this – Jürgen Klopp with three wins in a run of fourteen league games in 2020-2021, the Covid season , is perhaps the only comparable counterexample. Guardiola seemed stunned afterwards. All things, as he recently began to recite, will pass away. Including the imperial phase of his Manchester City.

There may not even be a good reason for it; only that football has determined that it should be that way.

On this day

As chaotic as things have been for Manchester United over the past decade, they are not as bad as they were on December 16, 1972, when they produced probably their worst performance since the Second World War as they sat in third place in the First Division five games lost. -0 away to Crystal Palace, which was at the bottom. The decline after winning the European Cup in 1968 had been steep. Matt Busby had retired in 1969 but stuck around as managing director, undermining first Wilf McGuinness and then Frank O’Farrell.

1972-73 started badly, when George Best, whose behavior had deteriorated, was charged with hitting a woman in a club in November – he was subsequently convicted. O’Farrell fined him £200 and suspended him. Best headed to London, failed to show up at a meeting with directors to discuss his conduct and was transfer-listed. But then Busby offered him a second chance. The players, fed up with his antics, were shocked and, as Reg Drury wrote in the News of the World, “surrendered as meekly as their directors had done in the confrontation with George Best”. The following week, O’Farrell and Best were fired, although Best would receive further reprieves.

• This is an excerpt from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, the Guardian US’s weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Do you have a question for Jonathan? Email footballwithjw@theguardian.com and he will provide the best answer in a future edition