WITH an international break upon us now is perhaps a good time to still our senses and smell the roses before entering the jungle warfare of a ferociously taxing end-of-season run-in. Here in this clearing, the view is spectacular for Manchester City. Goals are resplendent, with 142 across all competitions: 20 more than at this juncture last term. Also to this juncture, they boast the tenth best Premier League campaign since its founding in 1992. Below them are some special teams who are held in the highest historical regard.

This has all been achieved from regularly dismantling the best and the rest with domination of possession and enlightened use of it that continues to astound even after it’s become the norm. It’s their ruthless examination of opposition weaknesses though that truly marks them out as the rarest of breeds. On ten occasions Pep Guardiola’s men have scored five or more goals in a single game and such prolificacy has not derived from flat-track bullying. Two of the routs were administered in the Champions League while six was hammered past Chelsea.

This and more is extremely impressive and has propelled them to a point in time where the possibility of a quadruple is discussed with a straight face. Should City do it – as unlikely as it presently seems because the unbelievable always appears unbelievable until it’s standing right in front of us – then they will have completed football.

After a high-flying 2017-18, injuries have forced Kevin De Bruyne out of his stride this season pic.twitter.com/gSGUVXkWdf

— Goal (@goal) February 3, 2019

What is just as impressive, however, as we enjoy a rare respite from constant games and look back instead of ahead, is the acknowledgement of how so many of these sumptuous symphonies have been played without their conductor. Impressive? Make that staggering.

It was a surprise to many when Mo Salah pipped Kevin de Bruyne to last year’s Player of the Season award. The Liverpool striker was a goal-scoring force of nature who fired his side to fourth place whereas De Bruyne was everything, absolutely everything to a team that reimagined football and became centurions. He was their vision; their brains; their instigator and metronome and at times he resided on another planet to all those around him. It cannot and should not be underestimated how integral the Belgian is to this Manchester City creation just as it cannot and should not be underestimated how phenomenal he was individually throughout 2017/18.

Yet this time out, due to a torn knee ligament sustained in August and then an unconnected issue arising in his other knee soon after, the midfielder has been a peripheral figure on the edge of City’s resumption of brilliance. He has made just seven Premier League starts, two less than Manchester United’s misfit Fred. He has appeared fewer times in the Champions League than Divock Origi. In the league alone De Bruyne has participated in a quarter of the game-time he enjoyed at this stage last term and for much of this, he has been only three-quarters fit and noticeably off the pace.

Pep Guardiola has said that Kevin De Bruyne will be out "for a while" with a hamstring injury picked up against Bournemouth today.

Not been his season at all. pic.twitter.com/lh8sA6LsAu

— Footy Accumulators (@FootyAccums) March 2, 2019

Yet still it’s continued, the exceptional exhibitions of beautiful fare; the merciless sovereignty and this can be attributed to two things, namely the emergence of Bernardo Silva as a genuinely influential dervish of creativity and perhaps more so to Manchester City’s twelfth man which is Pep Guardiola’s much-imitated but never bettered template. 

Still, it astonishes and in addition to that it annoys too because how frequently has the rest of football been reminded of City’s substantial loss from almost the get-go? Barely, if that. For many, it’s not even registered.

And that annoyance only grows when a hypothetical scenario is proffered where Mo Salah is the player who succumbs to cruel circumstance with the season just a game old. For the Reds to be deprived of their star man for such a long time would surely see them excused for any rare defeats while their title charge would unquestionably be lavished with even greater praise due to the Egyptian’s absence.

So be it. It’s a trivial point in the big scheme of things and furthermore, it’s an oversight contributed to by Blues themselves who hardly ever bring up the biggest obstacle overcome this season. This, of course, is to their enormous credit.

15 – Manchester City are a maximum of 15 games away from achieving the Quadruple.

Can City do it, fellow Blues?

via [@StatCity] #ManCity ⭕ pic.twitter.com/8oBCUOZzwI

— City Central (@City_CentraI) March 17, 2019

Besides, the all-too-brief reverie of smelling the roses has passed and now it’s time to hold our nerve and look ahead; to a formidably challenging period that could see City play 14 fixtures in 49 days should they reach both finals. It is a wearying, demanding and relentless schedule that amounts to a game every 3.5 days. It denies City even a single, crucial fourth day of full recovery. It threatens to test every ounce of their stature.

“With the fixtures we have in April we need everybody. It’s crazy.  Everybody is going to play and Kevin, Ferna, John, Benjamin… they are all going to be back soon, and we need them,” Guardiola said this week, with some understatement.

This is especially true of De Bruyne because even the greatest of teams need their greatest of players at some point. Not even City can reimagine that.