There is a phrase in football that you will hear almost on a weekly basis: one game at a time. The implication being that nobody looks too far into the future.
It’s a nice line but the reality is different. When you have eight days like the kind Manchester City are facing, as a player you cannot help but look ahead to the context of different fixtures and, for managers, the preparation for such a period will have started well in advance.
City won’t win anything between now and next Sunday but once they have completed trips to London, Paris and Merseyside, they will have a fair idea of what the season has in store for them – whether they are the team to beat or whether they will be the ones doing the chasing.
Manchester City have had a mixed start to the season dropping points in two out of five games
They have a tough week ahead starting with Champions League winners Chelsea on Saturday
This period – Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, Paris St Germain at the Parc des Princes and Liverpool at Anfield – is one where players can enhance their reputations but I believe this is also a spell for a manager to come in to his own.
Pep Guardiola was brought to Manchester to excel in these moments. We all know what he has achieved over the last five years but this feels like a perfect point for him to remind everyone of why he is regarded as the best in the world, a genius who sees football in a different way.
Occasionally, he has had a habit of overthinking things in big games and Chelsea will have been on his mind for weeks, particularly after what happened at the end of last season when Thomas Tuchel oversaw three wins over City at Wembley, the Etihad Stadium and in the Champions League final.
After facing Chelsea, Manchester City then go away to face Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday
They finish their week of away trips against in-form title rivals Liverpool on October 3
As a player, when you come up against an opponent who gets the better of you, it plays on your mind ahead of the next time you face them and you ask yourself questions: Will they do it to me again? What can I do to stop them? How will I cope on my own?
Guardiola will be no different, in that he will be anxious about the outcome at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea look ominous – I was at Tottenham last week and they won there, comprehensively, without hitting top gear – and Tuchel has surprised me with how quick he has joined the elite managers.
Every decision Tuchel makes right now is coming off and Chelsea are a team with momentum and confidence because of it. The concern on the other hand for City this weekend, will be if a hangover remains from what happened when the teams met in Porto in May.
It surprised me that City didn’t buy a number nine in the summer. They arguably needed that player two summers ago, never mind two months ago, before the attempt to sign Harry Kane and then Cristiano Ronaldo ended in failure.
It's periods like this why Manchester City hired Guardiola to help them achieve success
He made it work last season but how does Guardiola do it again? When you spend £100million on someone, as City did with Jack Grealish, he is going to start. You then have Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Feran Torres and Raheem Sterling to fit in to a couple of spots.
Sterling, as it stands, is tending to find himself as the odd man out. He’s only scored three goals for City since February 21st in his last 24 appearances, which is at odds to what he’s been doing for England.
One of the aspects I admire most about Raheem is his ability to overcome adversity. He still has another level to go in terms of his form and I always believe when City are on song
