Have Manchester City been under any real pressure this season?

In individual games, for sure. Last minute winners were a common theme of the City of the autumn time, who were on such a hot streak that they just found a way to win somehow. There’s immense pressure in those final few minutes, and Guardiola’s side showed their mettle and held their nerve.

But there has only been, perhaps, one time all season in which the Blues have come into the game itself under pressure.

It wasn’t the Manchester derby in December. A win at Old Trafford was always going to be a bonus, and even a defeat was only going to cut their lead to five points - hardly win or bust. Every game since then, no matter how big, has been tempered by the knowledge that the league title is all but secured and even their Carabao Cup semi-final was played against a team City knew they could beat if they focused well enough.

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Instead, you probably have to go all the way back to the very end of September for the last time City came into the game itself under pressure. That was an away trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea back when the Manchester clubs were neck and neck at the top of the Premier League table. That day, City bossed the game and came away with a 1-0 victory which seemed to prove just how good they were - that this wasn’t a fairweather team who would crumble when the going got tough.

And so there’s no suggestion that City will crumble now, either.

But the fact remains that only one trophy - from this vantage point, with the Premier League already won - would be a failure. Given how dominant this team have been, and how their football they’ve played has been historic, and will go down as some of the best in history, to only win the league would be disappointing. In effect, they won it before Christmas. If nothing else, lifting only one cup would mean having a failure of a second half of the season. But far from attempting to pile on the pressure, I believe this only shows how high this see-it-to-believe-it team have set the bar.

Out of the FA Cup now, there are only two more chances of silverware left for Guardiola’s side. The Champions League which is the holy grail, and given the level of teams in the competition there’s no shame in not winning it. And the Carabao Cup, in which the manager has done his job and brought his team to the final - now they have to perform on the day.

But that’s just the problem: City are coming into their first game in quite a long time aware of the pressure of what’s at stake. They have been almost too far ahead in the league for so long, with little pressure on each game. In the Champions League, the failure of Napoli to beat Shakhtar Donetsk meant that City never really had a challenge for progression and their reward was Basel, duly dispatched with ease.

Now, suddenly, after defeat to Wigan, there’s pressure on City. Whereas they could have had a quadruple at the start of the week, they could be staring down the barrel of having to win the Champions League to lift a second trophy this year, and that’s no guarantee.

In some ways, defeats to Liverpool and Wigan could be something of a blessing in disguise, showing City they aren’t invincible in a way they Premier League table simply doesn’t. But it will also tell us a lot about this team like nothing else has so far.

On Sunday against Arsenal, we’ll see the real Manchester City: the one who will continue to dominate, or the one who will run out of steam before the trophies are handed out.