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The Ghost At The Feast Of Pep Guardiola: Previewing Manchester City vs. Southampton

In the second of this week’s Premier League Previews, we see the spectre of Manuel Pellegrini appearing at Guardiola’s footballing feast.
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Six games into the season, Manchester City looked unstoppable. Carried forward on a tide of delightful, coherent attacking football, they swept away all comers and found themselves with a perfect record at the top of the Premier League. Pep Guardiola was hailed as a genius, a smooth-headed saviour to haul us out of the domestic doldrums. Once more, the Premier League would boast the best team in Europe. Once more, we, the mighty English, would have the most marketable league in the whole fucking world™.

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Unfortunately, since then, City have had a fair few scrapes. They have been driven onto the rocks of footballing uncertainty, and are now faced with the unenviable tasks of patching the hull, righting the mizzen-mast and hauling themselves back onto the high seas of good form. If nautical metaphors aren't really your thing, then let us explain ourselves in plainer terms: since late September, City have drawn with Everton and lost to Tottenham, while taking a single point from their last two games in the Champions League. They are still top of the Premier League, in fairness, but they won't be there much longer if they can't get back to winning ways, starting with their home match against Southampton this Sunday.

READ MORE: Previewing Chelsea vs. Manchester United

To switch metaphors rather abruptly, it feels as if City are being haunted at the moment. Their form feels somehow familiar, what with a fast start to the season shuddering to a halt after a couple of domestic slip ups and a lacklustre run on the European stage. Guardiola can feel a chill wind on his neck, a distant creaking of floorboards, and a low, almost imperceptible moan echoing around the halls of the Etihad. Suddenly, he sees an apparition before him. It is the spectre of Manuel Pellegrini, and he has come to torment his successor's soul.

If Guardiola started by serving up a football feast in Manchester, Pellegrini is the ghost at said feast. Guardiola is Macbeth and, having conveniently disposed of the obstacle to his ambitions halfway through the 2015/16 season, his own personal Banquo is now coming back to remind him of his mortal sins. City's last few results have been remarkably Pellegrini-ish, especially the 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Barcelona in midweek. His phantom has crept its quiet way back into City's results and performances, and it is now up to Guardiola to exorcise it, or be consumed by its silent condemnation and ethereal reproach.