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Manchester City have enjoyed a blistering start to the 2017/18 Premier League season. After a season of mediocre performances under a manager of the caliber of Pep Guardiola last year, the Citizens have managed to turn their fortunes around for this year's campaign.
Barring a home draw against Everton, City have swept past any team that has come their way. They have won nine of their ten league matches this term and find themselves sitting five points ahead of their cross-town rivals, Manchester United, who are placed second in the table.
Guardiola brought in key names such as Ederson Santana de Moraes, Kyle Walker and Bernardo Silva this summer, and the trio has hit the ground running to become an important part of the Spaniard's first team at the Etihad Stadium.
Adding to that, the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, David Silva, Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero have all shown remarkable improvement from last season. Their performances have seen City rack up an astounding number of 35 goals in 10 games, which is the highest tally of goals in Europe's top five leagues till now.
With City's fantastic start, critics and fans have started comparing them with legendary teams of the yester-years. Similarly, there have been murmurs surrounding City going on to emulate Arsenal's 2003/04 title-winning run, where the team under Arsene Wenger went through the league without losing a single game.
However, with the season only ten games old, it could be too premature to consider Manchester City challenging the record of the Invincibles. Here are five reasons why they might not remain unbeaten until the end of May:
#1 Pep Guardiola's Champions League dream
The Manchester City manager is considered as one of the best of this generation. Before moving to Manchester last summer, he achieved glorious success in Spain and Germany with powerful teams like FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
During his time the two top clubs, Guardiola won nearly every competition his team participated in. He enjoyed winning the Champions League with Barcelona on two occasions and scalped three back-to-back Bundesliga titles with Bayern Munich.
However, the challenges he faced at those clubs were nothing compared to what he endured in his debut season in England. The Spaniard was a frustrated figure down the touchline more often than not, and it started to look like he was not relishing his job anymore.
But after getting rid of the dead weight in summer and roping in an array of talented players, Guardiola's assembled a squad that appears to be the best on paper in England. No side in the country has managed to defeat them, while they have enjoyed an average of 3.5 goals per game.
The current City side not only looks like a Premier League-winning outfit but also looks to be serious challengers for the Champions League. Playing in Europe's elite club competition brings with itself its own set of drawbacks, which could prevent the Citizens from going unbeaten in their national league.
There is no doubt that the Champions League is a bigger honour than the Premier League, more so for City as they are yet to win it. However, if Guardiola is to prioritize winning the Champions League, keeping his players injury-free and match-fit for the league games will be extremely difficult. This, in turn, could see the Manchester club lose a few matches en-route to achieving something greater in the European circuit.
#2 Lacking depth on the defensive front
Guardiola may have replaced the aging trio of Pablo Zabaleta, Aleksander Kolarov and Gael Clichy at full-back by Danilo Luiz da Silva, Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy, but his defensive options are still limited. While Fabian Delph has performed well as a makeshift left-back, he certainly cannot be considered as a long-term option.
At centre-back, Nicolas Otamendi and John Stones may have been a shade better than what they were last season, but City's recent game against West Brom showcased the glaring flaws in their defense.
To deputize for the duo, City's only out-and-out first-team option is Elaquim Mangala - who had a nightmare of a performance in his Carabao Cup performance against Wolves. Captain Vincent Kompany is reeling from yet another injury and it is getting hard for Guardiola to find a stable pair at centre-back.
Unless Guardiola uses the January window to rope in a couple of defenders at the very least, it may be hard for City to sustain their unbeaten run in their Premier League fixtures come March, when the league and UCL schedules are jam-packed.
#3 Guardiola isn't one to be carried away by records
Arsene Wenger, midway through the Invincibles campaign, eyed a record that was not achieved by any other side in the Premier League. In fact, England's top division hadn't seen an unbeaten side since the 1888/89 season when Preston North End finished the season without losing a single league or cup game. In fact, he was dreaming on achieving such a feat from the 2002/03 season.
Due to the Frenchman's dream of achieving the unthinkable in the modern era, he decided to prioritize league games at the cost of forgoing other competitions. Come the business end of the campaign, when the record was within reach, Wenger did not mind giving up his Champions League dream and his side suffered a shock defeat at the hands of the then underdogs, Chelsea.
Throughout the course of the season, Arsenal lost a number of crucial games in other competitions due to Wenger's obsession to go unbeaten in the league. They lost key Champions League group stage matches against Inter Milan and Dynamo Kiev and also got beaten by Middlesbrough in both legs of the semi-finals of the League Cup. They also lost to rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup.
Furthermore, when the league was secured, rather than giving his fringe players an opportunity to impress, Wenger continued with the same team and managed to secure scrappy draws at the end of the season. The spoils were shared in the last four of their six games of the season, including a home draw to minnows Birmingham.
Guardiola does not think like Wenger does. He wouldn't mind losing a few games en route to achieving short-term and long-term success for his club. He is also unlikely to forego winning the FA Cup or the Carabao Cup, where we saw him playing a strong team in the game against Championship outfit Wolves.
The Spaniard is a serial winner and would like to win as many trophies as he can, rather than putting all his eggs in one basket and opting to go unbeaten in the league. He isn't programmed to think that way, and the thought of emulating the Invincibles is likely to be one of the last things on his mind at the moment.
#4 Increased competition compared to the 2003/04 season
The Premier League has not got the tag of being the world's most competitive league just for the sake of it. Compared to Europe's top leagues, where it usually is a two-horse or three-horse race for the title, many lower-ranked sides in England are well equipped to cause hefty surprises.
Leicester City did the unthinkable in 2015/16 by winning the league against all odds, while Chelsea turned around their miserable form in the first three months of last season, to end it with their hands on the trophy come May.
This season, City may be five points adrift of the chasing pack, but it may be too soon to hand them the title just yet. Jose Mourinho, like Guardiola, has achieved success everywhere he has gone and is accustomed to fighting his way through adversity. Also, the man from Portugal has a penchant for league titles in his second seasons at clubs, and this tradition could follow suit again, with him serving his second term at Manchester United this year.
It also may be a little premature to write off Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, who possess a talented crop of players and tactically sound managers to challenge the two Manchester clubs for the title. Liverpool and Arsenal may currently be rank outsiders in the title picture, but a good run of form for a couple of months, and the league table could have a different look to it.
#5 Excessive squad rotation could lead to City's downfall
Manchester City may be Europe's best team in the final third this season, but they are far from assured on the defensive end. Currently, this weakness hasn't been exposed because of their ability to outscore their opponents, but they cannot sustain with the same approach throughout the course of the season.
Against a West Brom side that scored only seven goals prior to the game, City surprisingly shipped in two goals. Tony Pulis' side, despite having a defensive approach, managed to breach the defense of a team that's challenging heavily for the league. If Guardiola wants a smooth pathway to the trophy, he needs to sort out his ever-changing defense and ensure bringing in a few players in the summer.
His excessive rotation policy is a cause of concern. To put this into perspective, let us consider Chelsea's team last season. They kept the third most consistent team that year to win the title, while Leicester in 2015/16 and the City of 2013/14 made the fewest changes to their starting eleven to do the same.
Thus, if City are to remain unbeaten through the league, they will have to find a set of 11-13 top-class players that can get the job done week in and week out this season. Also, if the last few years are anything to go by, the side that has possessed one of the strongest defenses has usually gone on to win the league.
