TURF MOOR, BURNLEY – By the 10th minute at Turf Moor, Manchester City's travelling fans had already started running through their repertoire.
Rayan Cherki had already been denied by a combination of Martin Dubravka and the Burnley goalkeeper's left post before Erling Haaland dinked Pep Guardiola's side into a 1-0 lead with a coolly judged finish.
"City win five in a row, we're all singing Edin Dzeko!" boomed the song from the Cricket Field Stand, a chant that recalls the winning run to the finish line that Manuel Pellegrini's City and the evergreen Bosnian striker put together to pip Liverpool in 2013/14. It gets an airing every springtime the club are in this position, and Wednesday's victory to confirm Burnley's relegation means the equation is the same: win five more in a row and lift the trophy. Probably.
Probably because the race could barely be tighter. If City's gripping 2-1 win over title rivals Arsenal at the weekend felt like a big momentum swing, the pendulum now lies dead centre after an unexpectedly arduous night for Pep Guardiola's team in east Lancashire.
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In the 22nd minute, the travelling fans were serenading Mario Balotelli. Around an hour later, their current off-the-cuff maverick, Rayan Cherki, was chipping the ball up to himself to volley an unsuccessful cross. Haaland hit the post, Nico Gonzalez and Antoine Semenyo went close, and Nico O'Reilly's recent Midas touch deserted him as he botched a close-range opportunity. The score remained 1-0 when Marc Guehi headed away a stoppage-time corner with the veteran Dubravka marauding in the City box.
The party atmosphere had changed as City's supporter got on with the business of imploring their heroes to get over the line. Guardiola's team ended Arsenal's 200-day stint at the summit but are only top on goals scored.
Erling Haaland
Getty Images
"Everyone thinks these games are easy, when a lot of emotion and focus went into the last game against Arsenal. You're playing a team that's fighting for their lives, you know, it's not going to be easy," Guehi told reporters afterwards. "Whoever thought it was going to be easy, clearly doesn't know football, so, you know, I'm glad everyone did their jobs today, dug in. The most important thing was just to get the win."
City's run of four consecutive wins across all competitions heading into this match began with the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal, with Premier League victories over Chelsea and the Gunners following a 4-0 thrashing of Liverpool in the FA Cup quarterfinals. Eight players – Haaland, Cherki, Semenyo, O'Reilly, Bernardo Silva, Jeremy Doku, Matheus Nunes, Abdukodir Khusanov — started all of those matches and also line-up for kick-off at Turf Moor.
Had Guehi not been cup-tied for the Carabo Cup final and Rodri not suffered a weekend groin injury, Guardiola's favoured 10 outfielders of the moment would probably have remained unchanged. Fatigue, both mental and physical, and an air of "afte the Lord Mayor's Show" was maybe inevitable in East Lancashire.
"Yeah, it's not easy. There's a lot that goes into those games and we knew how important that game [against Arsenal] was," Guehi said. "But you always have to back it up and come into a place like Turf Moor when they're fighting for their lives… they actually made it really difficult for us, both attacking and defensively. Getting over the line was the most important."
Guardiola conceded City would have relaxed more in front of goal had they managed to find a second against Burnley, but if the race goes down to goal difference, Guehi and Khusanov's blossoming centre-back partnership in front of Gianluigi Donnarumma could also be key. The Italian claimed his 13th Premier League clean sheet of the season.
Abdukodir Khusanov
"The lads were saying it a lot, to be fair. Erling was mentioning it a lot – just make sure we don't concede because it's really important, right to the last game of the season," Guehi said. "We don't know how it's going to come down, so any advantage that we can gain in the title race is important.
"It's really nice to play with Khusa. He's so good, he's so fast, a really intelligent defender. I think we complement each other really well, but I think I've learned a lot from anyone that I've played with at the football club so far, whether it's in training or in games. Hopefully, whoever it is playing at the back is able to carry on getting clean sheets and winning games."
Guardiola is likely to shift around some of his personnel when attention turns to an FA Cup semifinal against Southampton on Saturday, although in a race like this, everything can feel interlinked. City beating Liverpool and Arsenal losing to Southampton in the cup quarterfinals had no direct bearing on the Premier League. But a nerve-riddled Arsenal then lost to Bournemouth, City swaggered past Chelsea, won last weekend's six-pointer and here we are — everything still to play for and the remaining possibilities of a second domestic treble in Manchester.
A month ago, Arsenal were on course for a quadruple. Such things can turn to dust quickly at a time of the year when even the supposedly easy games can become very complicated indeed.
"A treble? I mean that's what you guys are talking about," Guehi chuckled, before returning to the script. "We're just focused on one game at a time, to be honest."
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