“Okay, another game, another record,” said Pep Guardiola. He was not being blase, just keen to stress he was not thinking about them. Landmarks are just the by-product of brilliance for Manchester City.
As it is, the record Guardiola could equal against Wolves on Tuesday is one he set. His City went a club-record 28 games unbeaten in 2017. Now 27 have elapsed since City lost at Tottenham in November.
They have won the last 20. They are closing in on Bayern Munich's record for any club in Europe's top five leagues of 23 consecutive victories. Yet if Guardiola is citing Bayern, it is because at the moment he politely disagrees with David Moyes' view that City are the continent's outstanding side.
“The best team in Europe is Bayern Munich because they won everything,” he explained.
“In England, the champions are Liverpool; they are the best. If you want to take the crown, you have to win it. In March, no one is champion. You have to do well and try and win it but we cannot deny the last two-and-a-half months were exceptional. Today, right now the champion is Liverpool, like in Europe it is Bayern Munich, and if you want this honour you have to win it.”
He thinks City are a long way to doing that, even though victory on Tuesday would put them 15 points clear at the top of the table, if only for 24 hours. If taking each game as it comes has helped propel them this far, their manager is adamant that they cannot get carried away. Their circumstances could change quickly.
“There are 36 points to play for,” he outlined. “When you have 10 points left, or 12 of 15, it is another issue but 36 is many. In England, every team can lose and lose and lose in a row in one week. The champion is Liverpool, we are not. To do it we still have to win eight, nine or 10 games and it’s a lot. There are incredible teams who struggle for four or five games to win games. It can happen to us too. Last season, it happened. At the beginning of the season, it happened. We were unable to win three games in a row in the first two months. That's why.”
City’s campaign started at Wolves, with a 3-1 victory that Guardiola called an “incredible result” for an injury-hit team who were deprived of a pre-season and who, he felt, struggled in the final half-hour.
Yet until their current sequence, they never won more than two consecutive league games. However, the fact that no one else has mustered more than four consecutive victories illustrates how hard it will be to catch City.
The chasing pack may take encouragement from City’s fixture list. Last season, Wolves became only the second team to do a double over a Guardiola side and Manchester United, City’s next opponents, then became the third. It may be why the Catalan sees the run-in as an obstacle course.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s system poses problems and City have had some difficulties against teams who play with three centre-backs. “It’s not three in the back, it’s five,” Guardiola countered. “They are so well-organised, with seven or eight behind the ball all the time, closing the spaces inside. They are always a difficult side.” Wolves held City in the Carabao Cup in 2017 and then the Premier League in 2018.
City’s winning run has been a triumph of the squad and Guardiola is likely to rotate. He could recall Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Aymeric Laporte and Rodri. He may have an eye on Sunday’s Manchester derby, but he will not look too much further ahead. The time to assess records, he feels, is in the summer.
“It is an incredible question and it will be a nice answer at the end of the season,” he said. “We are delighted with what we have done so far. We cannot deny it. If no team has done it before it means how difficult it is but at the end what counts is if you lift the trophies or not. It is not the numbers that count. Next season, we will defend the title or it will be another team.”
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Winners
Best Men's Player of the Year: Kylian Mbappe (PSG)
Maradona Award for Best Goal Scorer of the Year: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
TikTok Fans’ Player of the Year: Robert Lewandowski
Top Goal Scorer of All Time: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
Best Women's Player of the Year: Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)
Best Men's Club of the Year: Chelsea
Best Women's Club of the Year: Barcelona
Best Defender of the Year: Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus/Italy)
Best Goalkeeper of the Year: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy)
Best Coach of the Year: Roberto Mancini (Italy)
Best National Team of the Year: Italy
Best Agent of the Year: Federico Pastorello
Best Sporting Director of the Year: Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)
Player Career Award: Ronaldinho
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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WandaVision
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany
Directed by: Matt Shakman
Rating: Four stars
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
'Top Gun: Maverick'
Rating: 4/5
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, Ed Harris
War 2
Director: Ayan Mukerji
Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana
Rating: 2/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Palestine and Israel - live updates
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The specs: 2018 Ducati SuperSport S
Price, base / as tested: Dh74,900 / Dh85,900
Engine: 937cc
Transmission: Six-speed gearbox
Power: 110hp @ 9,000rpm
Torque: 93Nm @ 6,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 5.9L / 100km
TOP 5 DRIVERS 2019
1 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 10 wins 387 points
2 Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 4 wins, 314 points
3 Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 3 wins, 260 points
4 Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 2 wins, 249 points
5 Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1 win, 230 points
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Juliet, Naked
Dir: Jesse Peretz
Starring: Chris O'Dowd, Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke
Two stars
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
