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Thomas Frank is an articulate man yet he struggled to respond to one question in particular after Brentford’s comeback against Manchester City.
It was straightforward enough: ten minutes into the game, did he feel like the Premier League champions were there to be got at? There was a squirm and a pause as an uncomfortable Frank tried to find a nice way of putting his answer about a team and a manager that he has enormous respect for; finally, the answer came: “I thought from before the game we had a good chance,” he offered up.
Brentford’s coach is too diplomatic to stick the knife in – his team had already done that in the final moments of an exciting Premier League game that ended up exasperating for City – yet his response could not hide the new reality for the Blues. Teams are expecting this serial winning machine to be a shadow of their former selves, and once the game starts there is no evidence that counters it.
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This was, it should be said, one of City’s best performances in months – maybe even the season. A team that has struggled to play their own game for so long took on Brentford at theirs and looked dangerous on counter-attacks to the point where they led the game 2-0 with 15 minutes to play.
However, opponents now always feel like they have a chance against a side no longer good enough to control as long as the football match. The chances could come early or they could come late, but teams now fully expect them to come.
Pep Guardiola spoke positively after the game about how City had created more chances on Tuesday night against Brentford than on any previous trip to the Gtech Community Stadium. That was fair, but as Frank pointed out afterwards the same was true in reverse.
“I think he’s right, there were three or four relatively good chances to them,” he said. “The rest, we were ok.
“But we’ve never created as many good chances against them, I think we had 18 shots and we’ve neve done that before. It was a game that was open and what a football match.
“I understand why the Premier League is the best in the world. Anyone who watched this must have loved it.”
There may not have been many City fans loving it by the end, but opposition teams are much more up for the prospect of facing the Blues now because they are expecting more joy than they used to have. And, in most cases, that is turning into reality on the pitch as City struggle to regain the aura they once gave off anywhere they went.