English soccer has never seen a team so utterly dominant as Manchester City entering the packed Christmas program.
There seems little doubt Pep Guardiola will be raising the Premier League trophy for the first time in May. It is just a question of when City will wrap up its third title since 2014 and how many records will tumble on the way.
City has already reeled off the most consecutive English top-flight wins — a record extended at the weekend to 17 games.
Manchester United’s record Premier League title-winning margin of 18 points from 2000 could also be under threat. And England could be looking at its third unbeaten “Invincibles” team after Preston in 1888-89 and Arsenal in 2003-04.
So it doesn’t bode well for a compelling second half of the Premier League season? Think again.
The chase for the other three Champions League spots should be fierce with eight points separating second-place Manchester United and Arsenal in sixth. Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham are in the mix among them. Two leading sides will fall by the wayside and be denied a place among the European elite.
The battle to stay in the world’s richest soccer league is also intense. No team is stranded at the bottom, with Swansea in 20th place only six points behind Southampton in 13th.
A closer look at the first half of the season:
Title Race: City leads by 13 points at the halfway stage after winning 18 of its 19 games and drawing one in the best-ever starts to a Premier League season. The only dropped points came at home to Everton in the second game on Aug. 21, when City played more than a half with 10 men following Kyle Walker’s sending-off.
Guardiola won the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich in late March in 2014 — aided by a winning streak of 19 games never before seen in a major European league.
It will be tough for Guardiola to win the title that early in England as he chases a quadruple after finishing his first season at the club without a trophy. City is already through to the League Cup semifinals, into the Champions League last 16 and begins its FA Cup campaign in two weeks.
Man United is in second place, with defending champion Chelsea three points further back in third. United manager Jose Mourinho says the title race is still on, but the rest of his peers among the chasing pack don’t see City faltering now.
It will be intriguing how Mourinho reacts to be seeing his title ambitions further fade in his second season at United, having already opted to publicly call out his “childish” players after a draw at Leicester on Saturday.
Surprise Team: An unfashionable club is mixing it with the heavyweights of the Premier League against all the odds. We’ve heard this before, right?
Two years ago, it was Leicester delivering a soccer fairy tale by somehow winning the league. Now it’s Burnley’s turn to provide the feel-good story of the season.
Widely regarded as a relegation candidate at the start of the season, Burnley is currently seventh. Don’t rule Burnley out of staying in the tussle for the Champions League qualification places, with Liverpool only three points better off in fourth. The northwest team hasn’t finished a season higher than sixth place in the top flight since 1974.
Burnley, which has conceded just 15 goals in 19 games, has already beaten Chelsea away and drawn at Tottenham and Liverpool. Not bad for a team that returned a profit of about $20 million in summer player sales when most of the rest of the Premier League was spending freely.