In the early morning of December 30, the 20th round of the Premier League continued, with the leader Manchester City winning 1-0 away to promoted Mabrentford to win 10 consecutive league games, already eight points ahead of Second-placed Chelsea, who was equally matched by the Seagulls Brighton in the early hours of this morning, and almost had two points in hand.
City have also been a bit short of major generals recently, with the main right-back Kyle Walker, centre-back Stones and defender Rodri all sidelined due to injury, while Ferrantore left to join Barca. But against promoted Mabrentford, Guardiola still made a four-man rotation, with Jesus, Forden, Glales and Acre rotating, with the top three partnering up front, which is completely different from the 6-3 win over Leicester in the previous round.
Although Brentford is a promotion horse, it has performed well against strong teams, they have beaten Arsenal, West Ham United and Everton, and have also drawn 3-3 with Liverpool of the Reds, which is a giant killer. In this game against Manchester City, they also played without fear. In the opening 14th minute, Brentford launched a very threatening attack, but thanks to Canselo's wonderful goal line clearance to save the goal. After Foden pushed the goal in the 15th minute, Rubendiaz's header came out of the way and nearly swung himself around, but Ederson's attention was highly focused on lifting the ball off the crossbar.
In the second half, De Bruyne missed a crossbar with a long-range shot, and Laporte's header before the final was blown away by VAR. But in the end, Manchester City still had a thrilling victory over their opponents 1-0 and continued their high-flying progress. Although they only had 12 shots on goal, three of them were on target, which was not as good as in the past.
City's next game will be next year's away challenge to Arsenal on 1 January. In other words, they have finished the full year of 2021. For Manchester City, 2021 is undoubtedly a very brilliant year. Especially in the Premier League, they won last season's title and led the table by eight points after 20 rounds of this season. In particular, a series of impressive records are even more breathtaking.
After winning Brentford, City have won 36 Premier League games in 2021 and have scored 110 points. Chelsea, who are second in the ranking, have only 83 points, 27 points less than Manchester City. In addition, City's 113 goals, 24 clean sheets and 19 away wins also set a record for the English top flight. The six games lost are also the fewest of the Premier League teams.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that this is the fourth time that Guardiola has led Manchester City to play a 10-game winning streak in the Premier League, while the first three times Manchester City have won the Premier League without exception. This season, Manchester City is still in good shape, while Liverpool and Chelsea behind them have encountered problems of one kind or another to concede points. Although the schedule is just halfway through, it seems that the prospects for Manchester City to defend their title in the Premier League are still bright.
Still, guardiola remained characteristicly cautious in his post-match interview, saying Brentford was the best team in set-pieces and that his side was good in the second half. But it's too early to talk about the title now, because Liverpool and Chelsea are both very strong, and they and the team are now only thinking about the next game.
In fact, after joining Manchester City in the summer of 2016, Pep Guardiola only finished third in the Premier League due to the aging of the back line and the run-in of tactical play in his debut season, and in the past 4 Premier League seasons, Manchester City has not fallen out of the top two and won 3 of them. Especially in the 2018/19 Premier League, Liverpool maintained a full victory in the last nine rounds of matches, but still could not erase the one-point gap with Manchester City, because the latter won 14 consecutive wins and did not give the Reds any chance.
In more than 5 seasons in charge of Manchester City, Guardiola has shown excellent coaching skills, whether it is 3 centre-backs flying on both wings or 4 defenders firing three arrows, or the frontless team that started last season, they have shown strong competitiveness, almost lifelong playing the fiercely competitive Premier League into the Bundesliga, the league level of Guardiola, is simply a desperate existence.