After blowing away Manchester United, Manchester City’s March madness set to continue with huge upcoming fixtures

As Manchester City celebrated their victory under the lights against Manchester United in a derby which continues to lose its competitive edge by the season, the Pep Guardiola side will be wary that much greater challenges lie in front of the defending champions as the month progresses.

While a victory over United is a big deal in the local scheme of things, it’s now just another match in the grander context. Beating United nowadays is not something that’s a rarity with even Fulham having done it last week, something that they hadn’t done at Old Trafford since 2003. City, though, have bigger fish to fry.

Just like Julius Caesar was told to beware the Ides of March, City’s entire aforementioned month is littered with fixtures that have the potential to stab holes through their title defence and to a certain extent, their season. They have a Champions League clash against Copenhagen on March 7, huge Premier League matches with Liverpool and Arsenal on March 10 and March 31 respectively and a potentially draining FA Cup tie with Newcastle on March 16.

A spectacular way to score your 10th goal of the season! 🚀 @ManCity x @PhilFoden https://t.co/nlF4BTT3VE pic.twitter.com/KN1vwY9quJ

— Premier League (@premierleague) March 3, 2024

Yes, City haven’t lost a competitive fixture since their 1-0 defeat to Everton back in December 7 but have they been at their most lethal? Do they look like that well-oiled machine that ripped the competition apart with Erling Haaland playing destructor in chief? The simple answer is no.

Except the recent 6-2 thrashing to Luton that they meted out in the FA Cup with Haaland scoring 5 in one match and a 5-0 drubbing to Huddersfield, the champions have won by 2 goals on just 4 occasions, 3-1 against Burnley, 1-3 against Brentford, 2-0 against Everton and 3-1 against Copenhagen. The numbers look impressive for a normal run-of-the-mill team, but for a team which is filled to the brim with attacking talent, might read a little flat.

Not to mention the 0-1 win against Bournemouth, that 1-1 draw against Chelsea, the 0-1 victory against Tottenham and a scrappy 2-3 win against Newcastle, results that had the almighty treble winners escape with points by the skin of their teeth.

A problem that City might be facing this season is that they might be relying on Haaland a little too much to get the goals. Yes, that is why they had brought in the Norwegian behemoth but it’ll be nigh on impossible for any striker on the face of the earth to replicate the numbers he had in his debut season. Eventually, the shrewd tacticians of the Premier League would find a way to deal with him and they have this season, to a certain extent.

Like against Everton, which is toying with relegation, Haaland and City had to wait till the 71st minute to get a goal. Everton would have even walked away with a point if their striker Dominic Calvert Lewin had converted the handful of chances that fell to him. Against Chelsea, Raheem Sterling made no such mistakes as he put the Stamford Bridge side ahead in the 42nd minute which was only cancelled out by the underrated Rodri’s 83rd minute strike.

Erling Haaland has his goal!

That's 18 for the season… 😅#MCIMUN pic.twitter.com/wU1vDpczcm

— Premier League (@premierleague) March 3, 2024

Against Bournemouth, Brentford and Tottenham, City had to rely on individual brilliance to bail them out with 1-0 wins on all occasions. This is a far cry from a Pep Guardiola outfit that we have been accustomed to seeing where playing as a unit is of paramount importance.

It hasn’t helped that most of their players haven’t been on top form this season with Haaland leading the line. Yes, he has been among goals but he has missed far too many sitters this season than he would have liked. Especially a miss against United on Sunday where he somehow put the ball over the bar from point blank range. If it were last season, the goalie would have been picking the ball out of the back of the net. Even though he redeemed himself at the fag end of the match with a goal to add to Phil Foden’s brace, he still was mostly invisible for the majority of the match.

With City having conceded more than 20% of their goals to lightning-fast breaks this season, you can understand why they are not really going after the direct approach, a style of play which mostly benefits Haaland.

But with a glut of fixtures coming up that will define their season, Guardiola will be wary that they are yet to beat their title challengers in the Premier League this season with Liverpool getting a draw the last time they met in November and Arsenal snatching a 1-0 win in October. If the reverse fixtures follow the same pattern, we might be looking at new champions of England come May.

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