Man City vs Brighton result: City walk tightrope one more time to emerge as champions again

Manchester City have been walking along a tightrope all season, and should be used to high stakes. But it took the prospect of real disaster here, losing their footing, stumbling into a nightmare, that got them back on track to the title. Pain - or the prospect of it - has its uses.

When Brighton took the lead here it did not feel like much of a surprise. Because City had started badly, the worst they have been in weeks. Worse than they were early on against Burnley or Manchester United, in fact. The players were in the wrong positions, they were giving simple passes away. It looked nothing like City at their best. And when Glenn Murray got above Oleksandr Zinchenko to head in the opener it was as much as City deserved.

Maybe City needed to go through this exquisite agony, hovering over the abyss, to wake themselves up. 83 seconds when they were losing and Liverpool winning, when they were going to lose the title, and by two points. They had to face the reality of ending this brilliant season with neither of the biggest trophies in the game to show for it. No Premier League, no Champions League, just a domestic cup or two. The first team of the Premier League era to be top on the final day and not win it. They would have the embarrassment of the worst title choke in history to their names. Guardiola would have one league title from three seasons here, and no Champions Leagues, and his legacy would be questioned like never before.

And that sudden shock that City suffered here was enough, like the painful quick re-setting of a dislocation or fracture. So it was here: 83 seconds of the abyss and City were alive again, playing quicker or sharper than they had done all day. And the way the equaliser came, David Silva’s little flick, Sergio Aguero’s early finish, was so natural, all instant instinct, it felt like the accumulated experience of their three title wins before this one.

Once City had pulled it back to 1-1 they played with more freedom and speed than they ever managed at 0-0. Because they had stared into the emptiness and realised that they did not want to fly back to Manchester without that trophy after all. They did not want to return to their homes while Liverpool was still convulsed in the biggest street party in a generation. They did want to be known as the 95-point or even the 96-point runners up, the greatest non-winners in history. That was the tag they wanted to stick on Liverpool instead.

Up until that Aguero equaliser, all that disaster and shame felt like it was hovering over City like a cloud.

The story of City’s last few weeks is that they have not been able to hit teams with the same fast starts that defined the middle period of the season. No more blowing opponents away in the first 20 minutes, which is how they had won so many games. Not least the FA Cup semi-final against Brighton earlier in the season.

But against Manchester United, Burnley and Leicester City, Guardiola’s team had not been able to do that. As if they did not quite have that same intensity in their legs, for that same early burst. In all three of those matches they had to grow slowly into the game, unable to score in the first half, increasingly conscious of the ticking clock. Each goalless second taking them nearer disaster.

This time there was no such slow burn. The potential for failure was more sudden and immediate. City were not just playing against time, they were losing the game. And that had not been the case since St James Park on 29 January, the mindlessly complacent defeat that threatened to sink their whole season. Perhaps it was the memory of that day, the night when City thought their season was over, that shocked them into this.

Because after Aymeric Laporte’s headed goal, the goal put City 2-1 up, there was no prospect of any other result than a win. They had rediscovered that cool control and brisk football that characterised City at their their best.

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Pep Guardiola had been quivering with tension all afternoon, constantly coiled, spinning away in agony if anything went wrong. With his assistant Mikel Arteta he picked a squabble with Brighton number two Paul Trollope late on in the first half. And he looked constantly terrified that all his hard work this year was on the brink of collapse, that he would have nothing much to show for this remarkable season.

But that all changed with City’s second half surge, the vindication for the unlikeliest selection Guardiola has made in months. No-one expected Riyad Mahrez to play here, the man who had started just one of City’s last eight games and that - the 1-0 defeat at Tottenham in the Champions League - a disaster. But when Mahrez chopped inside Lewis Dunk and then beat Mat Ryan into the top corner with his weaker right foot, it was a moment of explosive vindication for Guardiola.

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Clenched fists, down on his haunches, kissing Arteta on the neck, gesturing to the away end, he looked like a man who finally learned that his work would be rewarded.

By the end Guardiola and the City fans were gleefully celebrated, and when Vincent Kompany was taken off for what could be the final time as a City player, he lifted his manager into the air with a bear hug that had 11 years of experience and commitment packed into it. City had stared into the possibility of disaster, and woken up in time to avoid it.