City’s ruthless finishing kick brings back the EPL title

This was a Premier League title won by Manchester City, not squandered by Liverpool. The time to hit peak form is in the home stretch and here City were flawless, winning all five of the games they were asked to cram into the last three weeks of the season. You only have to look at events in Spain this weekend, where none of the top three teams won their games, to appreciate just how hard it is to keep on producing winning performances in April and May. The muscles are screaming for a break and minds become scrambled as each new game becomes magnified in importance more acutely than the one before. Those last five wins for City finally settled a wildly fluctuating title race which swung out of Liverpool’s control when Steven Gerrard failed to control a simple pass in his own area and Chelsea’s Demba Ba broke Liverpool’s hearts at Anfield. [caption id=“attachment_1518521” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Manchester City fans celebrate after Manchester City are crowned Premier League Champions. AP[/caption] When it came down to the last game of 38, the calendar had thrown up an inviting fixture for City, a home match against West Ham. The men from east London had had a strange season, starting grimly, sparking into life in the winter through Sam Allardyce’s pragmatic approach before grinding to a halt once the threat of relegation had dissipated. On this occasion, they were never likely to produce much going forward, and it would have taken a major City meltdown for the visitors to produce some sort of a goal threat. West Ham defended well enough for half an hour before Samir Nasri collected a Yaya Toure pass and drove into the bottom corner of the goal from 25 yards out. Now, West Ham’s appetite for the contest dwindled somewhat. City went 2-0 up soon after the interval at a time when Liverpool, unthinkably, still trailed Newcastle at Anfield. Eventually, Brendan Rodgers clicked his fingers, changed formation and Liverpool did get a couple of goals but in the end those goals were only enough to stop Liverpool ending the season third behind Chelsea. It will feel slightly better to Reds fans that they end up one place above Jose Mourinho’s men having lost twice in the league to Chelsea. Toure, whose brother Kolo proved something of a misfit at Liverpool, was clearly City’s player of the season, turning defence into attack so often and supplying 20 goals from midfield. But it will not be forgotten in a hurry how Vincent Kompany rebounded from his costly error at Anfield to produce some commanding defensive displays in those last five wins. And yet, you’d probably single out Martin Demichelis, Edin Dzeko and Joe Hart for just as much praise as those two. All three started the season slowly and received plenty of criticism but Manuel Pellegrini knew they had enough about them to come good when it mattered. Demichelis is the really interesting one. The 33-year-old from Argentina is a mate of Pellegrini’s from their days together at Malaga but he was openly mocked after some very sketchy early appearances. It was not until the 14th game of the season, against West Brom on 4 December, that the manager paired Demichelis with Kompany for the first time. In time, they formed a formidable bond – City only lost one game in which they played alongside each other. Dzeko has some old-fashioned qualities as a striker that have served the team well. He is not as good a finisher as Sergio Aguero and does not hold the ball up as well as Alvaro Negredo, but he gets on the end of high or low balls into the box and does not let misses bother him. Hart’s renaissance in goal – at one point he was dropped to the bench as the errors mounted up – was complete when he made a stunning save from Steven Naismith in City’s win over Everton on 3 May. City only won that game by a single goal. Liverpool, who in the final analysis came agonisingly close, only have one problem they really need to address in the summer – defence. They conceded 50 goals; that’s well over an average of one a game and you really don’t win titles doing that however brilliant you are going forward. Rodgers won’t change Liverpool’s gung-ho style, and nor should he as they are the most effective they have been for a very long time by surging forward en masse. But playing that way, they do expose themselves to crisp counter-attacks where one small defensive lapse means a certain goal conceded. Especially with the Champions League to contend with in addition to another Premier League title challenge, top-class defenders need to be found and tough decisions made on the future of players like Glen Johnson, Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel.