Manchester City Fan View: Pep Guardiola's side can be the new Invincibles - but probably won't

Manchester City’s start to the season has been remarkable. Premier League and club records are falling by the game and plaudits are coming from rivals at home and abroad. Pep Guardiola’s men have become the talk of European football.

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte recently stated that every team that wants to win the Premier League title faces a big problem, “…and that is Manchester City.” Tottenham boss Maurico Pochettino was quite happy to say that right now, The Blues are the best side in Europe. Several of Napoli’s players went on record to say the same, following their back-to-back Champions League loses to City.

City are not just amassing points at ludicrous rate, they’re also scoring a phenomenal number of goals. With 11 league fixtures played, they’ve hit the net 38 times. That’s a shade under three and a half goals per game. Unsustainable though it might be, that puts the Etihad men on course for 131 goals by the end of the campaign. That won’t happen, but it gives us an idea of how ridiculous it all is right now.

With City flying in this way, many observers have started asking if they could complete this Premier League season without losing a game. The obvious answer is “yes” – of course they could. This side is a long, long way ahead of every other team in the country at present. Put any opponent in front of Pep’s men right now and it will be a side they can beat.

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Alas, football is not that simple. So while it is absolutely, unquestionably true that this City team could complete the league season unbeaten, the question needs to be framed differently to get a truer answer.

It’s not, “Could they?” It’s more a case of, “Will they?” The answer to that has to be, “Almost certainly not.”

The last side to achieve that feat were the magnificent Arsenal side of 2003-04. They didn’t suffer a single loss in 38 league matches and became known as The Invincibles. Prior to that, you have to go back to the first ever Football League season 0f 1888-89, when Preston North End went a full 22 game season without losing.

There’s a reason that examples of English teams immortalising themselves as “Invincibles” are so scarce, and that’s because it’s nigh on impossible to do. Not completely impossible, but as close to as you can get. Armed with this knowledge, it’s inexplicable to think that City will not lose a league match before the curtain falls on the campaign in May.

There are just too many variables. City almost lost their second match of the current campaign with thanks, in large part, to an atrocious refereeing decision. Kyle Walker was sent off for no reason which left them chasing down a 1-0 deficit with a man disadvantage.

There’s no reason to think that couldn’t happen again. Or maybe an opposition player could produce a bit of magic; we’ve already seen plenty of wonder goals this season and there’s nothing to stop City falling victim to one at some point.

It need not be a freak incident that stops City though. At some point, we are going to see this phenomenal side lose a football match. It’s entirely possible that when it comes, it will be because the side that delivers the defeat will just be the better team on the day. The league is full of tactically astute managers who will relish the challenge of stopping this free-flowing side.

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Jose Mourinho will look forward to trying to stink out the Manchester derby, roughing City up and defending for 90 minutes and catching City on the break. It might be a tactic more befitting of relegation battlers than title challengers but Mourinho has no shame in doing so. He’s already spent a full match refusing to attack a feeble Liverpool defence for fear of conceding a goal; imagine how much more defensive he’ll be against a side that can do everything.

Mauricio Pochettino is an astute tactician. His Tottenham Hotspur side were the first to defeat City last term and he’d love to repeat the trick again, should the Blues unbeaten run stretch to their December clash.

Every manager in the division will be looking to add a Manchester City scalp to their CV. On any given day, they should be unsuccessful. But football is a complicated sport and Pep Guardiola is as aware as anybody of that. That’s why he’s right to temper expectation every time he asked if City can become the new Invincibles. But even with all that in mind, until City taste defeat again, there’s nothing to stop us dreaming.