Race for Premier League title: Arsenal sitting pretty as title rivals Man City and Aston Villa stumble
Villa made a mistake by suffering a second consecutive defeat, this time against Brentford; Manchester City, on the other hand, showed a serious weakness of carelessness, complacency and a soft pivot to take a 2-0 lead at Tottenham Hotspur and take just one point.
If the chants at the cavernous Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were deafening when Dominic Solanke drew his own sideline with a “scorpion shot” with 20 minutes remaining, they might have been even louder at Arsenal’s north London ground, four miles away.
Guardiola put on his bravest face to BBC Sport: “Overall we played a really good game. “In the 70th minute they put more balls in the back, they put more players there, they put more players in the middle to attack more directly.
“They got a goal, we know what happened and then they got the momentum. That’s the way it is in the Premier League. In the end we got the momentum again.
“There was a setback, but we are still there, we are moving on. We have 14 games and a lot of points. Let’s see.”
Antoine Semenyo, who scored City’s second goal, also showed a daring attitude when he told BBC Sport: “The way we set up was to put them forward a little bit. The first half worked perfectly. I had one more chance before I scored. I’m kicking myself but we have to go again.
“Winning would definitely help our cause but it’s not over yet. We’ve got 14 games to go, so anything can happen.”
Guardiola must still be angry and frustrated that City were so dominant with a two-goal advantage in the first half but somehow managed to throw away two points and almost lose all three points.
Spurs had the courage to come back and draw but City were the architects of their own collapse as they were thrown out of calm control by Thomas Frank’s side, who have won just two of their 12 home games this season.
On this evidence, even against these opponents, these flawed City have shown that they can be reached and weakened in a way that does not give confidence that they will overhaul Arsenal.
This was the first time City had been ahead by more than 2 goals in the first half of a match but failed to win since April 2018 (3-2 defeat to Manchester United). They had led by 2+ goals at halftime in all competitions and won in each of the last 115 matches.
Emery has always downplayed Villa’s title ambitions as part of expectation management, but perhaps they were only in the chat about their home losses to Everton and then Brentford to confirm his belief that his side were always long-shot contenders.
