Well, City have won the league. So I guess that means it’s safe to look back at the dark days of January and February and ask, what the hell just happened?

     How dark exactly were those days? It’s almost difficult to recall now...

     Here’s a quick refresher:

     After the extended World Cup break finally came to an end, early January saw City getting booted from the EFL cup by lowly Southampton, losing 2-0 in as poor a game as we had played all season. Three days later, we lost a Manchester derby 2-1. In early February, City got shut out by Tottenham, in spite of a late red card for (guess who) Cristian Romero. Finally, on February 18th and 22nd, City drew twice against weaker opponents: first Nottingham Forest, then RB Leipzig. Over 10 fixtures, between January 11 and February 22, City’s winning percentage was a measly 50%. This is wretched, by the club’s elevated standards. Maybe (just maybe) winning half your games is sufficient for Europa League qualification in today’s premiership. By the way, I need hardly mention that throughout this time, Arsenal were firmly in command of the title race. In late February, things looked genuinely bleak for City’s chances at winning the league, much less a possible treble.

     At a tactical level, the problem was clear. City’s defense remained strong, but we were simply not scoring with the same frequency or the same ease as we had before the World Cup hiatus. And this was due to an equally obvious problem - the tactical isolation of Erling Haaland, who struck an increasingly lonely and frustrated figure at the front of City’s offense. He just wasn’t getting the touches he needed. In the derby loss to Manchester United, Haaland managed only 19 touches (City players often average 70 or more). The lone City goal in that game was provided by Jack Grealish, a player who, though he has emerged as an important player this year, is still perhaps our seventh or eighth most accomplished finisher, depending on how highly you rate Rodri.

     Some of us, including yours truly were, (to my retrospective embarrassment), starting to wonder out loud whether maybe the Haaland experiment had failed. City’s offense looked stagnant and predictable, the furthest thing from the free-flowing murder squads Guardiola had orchestrated in years past. Every City game, whether we won, lost, or drew, saw the commentators remarking on all the runs Haaland was making without getting the ball… all the penetrating passes not delivered… all the chances not created, much less scored. In late February, City showed signs of life, putting in a confident performance against an increasingly tough opponent and beating Aston Villa 3-1. None of City’s goals were scored by Haaland. Several days later, the Norwegian point man admitted to feeling overlooked.

     “It’s frustrating. Either the players don’t see me or think it’s another good chance to do something else. It’s up to other players around me. It’s about chemistry… I told Rodri, ‘Please look for me in behind’. I said please. I also told Bernardo (Silva) to put it in behind, it didn’t happen but things take time.”

     Depressing, right? Poor Norwegian Meat Shield. He has feelings too. But we know there’s a happy ending. So, again, what changed? Did City rediscover some chemistry they had had before the World Cup break? Not exactly. City’s on-field coordination doesn’t emerge out of thin air. No quantity of salty Nordic tears will conjure teamwork out of the Etihad’s meticulously cultivated soil.

     On the pitch, just as in the laboratory, chemistry is a science. And Pep Guardiola is a master chemist. Tactically, there were three keys to City’s resurgence:

     1. Midfielder John Stones.

     Increasingly, a fixture of City’s selection is John Stones, a centerback by training, played at right back or centerback and then moved into the midfield on offense, alongside Rodri at CDM, in a sort of 3-2-4-1 formation. The importance of this maneuver can’t be overstated. Pep has essentially created a new position, much as he did when handed the reins of a Barcelona team that included a young Leonel Messi. In this case, Stones, playing as a sort of False 4, creates a midfield overload on offense, offering an additional transition option when playing out of an opponent’s press, and increasingly, passing or carrying the ball forward up the center of the pitch, to link up with DeBruyne, Gundogan, or any other advanced midfielder City have in the center. This move has had three positive consequences for City. The first is it solidifies City’s midfield in the absence of the false 9 that Guardiola played in years past. Many of us noted that we weren’t bossing the midfield in January and February the way we used to. If Haaland is not getting touches, and we’re struggling to dominate the midfield, it’s clear something is seriously out of whack. A chemical imbalance, let’s call it. Midfielder John Stones, at False 4, restores City’s midfield dominance.

     Second, it allows city to play quick transitions out of the back. A 4-man defensive line, even one as good on the ball as City’s, can get stuck passing around the back without advancing the ball. Stones alongside Rodri provides an additional pivot – a central release option that can be converted into a point of attack. The third consequence of playing Stones here on offense is it allows City to attack up the middle, which is increasingly where our goals are coming from. In January and February, part of City’s predictability was an over-reliance on speculative crosses into the box, where even the 6’4” Erling Haaland can’t do much when double-marked by equally big centerbacks. When you possess the ball for long periods, you’re not going to catch anyone by surprise by endlessly chipping balls into the box from the wings. Part of Kevin De Bruyne’s ability to feed Haaland has to do with his central positioning – the ideal vantage point for picking out the striker’s angled runs. Now, an increasingly common sight in City’s midfield is John Stones carrying the ball up the center of the field, calmly surveying his options and daring the opponents’ midfielders to change their shape, much like a basketball point guard. This has been (literally) a game-changer for City.

     By the way, people who don’t know City like we know City were initially mystified by the way Guardiola has been using John Stones. (Of course, by next October, expect to see at least a handful of other Premier League coaches imitating it.) But those of us who follow City week in and out know that this apparent tactical oddity was actually a long time coming. Four years ago, Pep mused aloud about using Stones as a holding midfielder. And this season, he briefly auditioned Rico Lewis and Kyle Walker for the role, before settling on Stones, who is, in retrospect, the perfect choice – a tall and strong lad, a good tackler and natural positional defender, with rare composure on the ball and an excellent ability to pick out a medium length pass to relieve pressure or send an attacker into space. An English Sergio Busquets, in other words, with a bit more meat on his bones.

     2. The Bernardo and Grealish show:

     The second tactical change that has allowed City to dominate this spring is the emergence of Jack Grealish and Bernardo Silva as Pep’s favored wingers. This one is perhaps a bit unfortunate for those of us who love watching Riyad Mahrez (and who doesn’t?) We now only get to see him glide inside and wrongfoot defenders and curl those inswinging shots and crosses in games that are not absolutely crucial, or in the final minutes of games already won. And it is just an absolute shame that no less an attacking firebrand than Phil Foden has spent most of April and May rooted to City’s bench. But it is undeniable that City’s strongest XI now involves Grealish and Bernardo bossing the wings in Pep’s 3-2-4-1 offensive setup.

     One of the notable things about this formation is it is exceedingly narrow, especially for a manager who has been known to bench wingers for not having chalk on their boots. Exploiting the full width of the pitch is a fixture of Guardiola football 101. The narrow formation means that the wingers have an enormous amount of space to cover, even more than usual, and a massive workload. Their territory is not just box-to-box, but touchline-to-touchline, as they are expected to drop to City’s goal-line to reinforce the back 3, and on offense, are tasked with dribbling and passing their way to the opposing touchline to pick out cutback crosses to late arriving finishers, a Guardiola staple that still, in the Haaland era, produces a fair amount of City’s chances. Grealish and Silva’s sheer work rate and their defensive tenacity have made them clear favorites as starters, their “intangible” effort indispensable to City’s recent success even when they do not register in the post-match stat lines.

     Additionally, Pep has said he favors Grealish for his “pausa” – something we know he says is lacking in Foden’s game. The pausa, or pause, is an ability to slow the game while in possession, allowing a play to develop and giving teammates time to make runs off the ball. Both Grealish and Bernardo are world class at receiving the ball under pressure and maintaining possession, a trait that allows City to dictate the tempo, even when the ball is out on the sidelines. This is important to Pep because he’s terrified of getting countered on the wing, and City’s setup makes the team even more exposed if an opponent can run down the sideline into space. Arguably neither Grealish nor Bernardo has the cutting edge of Foden or Mahrez, but that’s not what Pep wants – he wants possession and control, because this provides offense and (by depriving the opponents of opportunities and allowing City to keep their shape) defense as well.

     3. Not quite False 9 Haaland:

     Our massive Norwegian talisman’s season, it seems, can be divided into thirds. In the first third, prior to the World Cup, Haaland pillaged opposing defenses by making trademark runs in behind. This was his bread and butter at Dortmund, and it continues to be something he does better than just about any other player on the planet. Haaland’s rare combination of size, speed, vision, and timing allow him to see the perfect run, hold it until just the right moment, and then to surge into space, where his speed and physicality allow him to overcome most centerbacks in a duel. In the first third of the season, City’s goals were overwhelmingly supplied by the Norwegian, as our playmakers (particularly Kevin DeBruyne) had a field day playing through balls for the berserker to run onto.

     In the second third of the season, after the World Cup, this approach broke down. Opposing teams adapted to the Haaland threat by sandwiching him between two centerbacks and by tasking midfielders with blocking and disrupting passing lanes into the space behind the defensive line. City, it turned out, had become too reliant on our new striker. The anti-Haaland defense worked, cutting off the big man’s supply lines and, in the rare cases when he touched the ball, boxing him to the degree that his long legs and broad shoulders provided limited advantage. Frustrated, Haaland made run after run after run without getting service, not so much because his teammates couldn’t see him, but because they couldn’t thread perfect passes through the mid block that defenses were using to deny him the ball. It started to seem like for Haaland to score, we needed someone to make an impossibly perfect pass to pick him out. Luckily, the best passer in the world is on our team, but relying on him to perform magic tricks, week in and week out, was not a sustainable formula for winning. (Again, chemistry is a science, right?)

     The final third of the season for Haaland started with a strange sight. In late February, toward the end of that string of losses and draws, Haaland started dropping deep (very deep) either on Pep’s direction, or out of frustration at his inability to get service up front. I distinctly remember in one of these games, Haaland ran back next to Rodri to receive a 20-foot pass just outside of City’s box. At first, this didn’t work particularly well. Erling Haaland is not a false 9, he’s a real 9. He’s the physical opposite of Leonel Messi, too big to receive the ball and turn in tight central spaces, with a high center of gravity and a physique made for powerful linear movements rather than spinning, dancing, and dodging, the balletic necessities of a central midfielder. More often than not, when he ventured deep, he turned the ball over or dished awkward square balls to the wings and then turned and sprinted upfield like an enormous Viking puppy. But as the season progressed, Haaland became more and more comfortable venturing back into midfield. Rather than dropping deep for long stretches of possession, the way a false 9 does, Haaland dropped into pockets of space alongside DeBruyne or Gundogan at crucial moments, when City is transitioning or playing out of the back. This drags a centerback forward, out of position, and creates space behind for the midfielders to run into. It also allows Haaland to showcase his own playmaking skill, which, it turns out, is a seriously underestimated part of his game.

     The culmination of Haaland’s adapted role came in City’s 4-1 dismantling of Arsenal. By dropping, receiving, and playing the ball into space, Haaland provided two assists, both for DeBruyne, before netting his own in injury time. Over the final third of the season, City’s offense has thrived as Haaland has evolved and diversified his game, occasionally looking to run behind, occasionally dropping into midfield. This has re-injected the trademark Guardiola unpredictability into the offense and has made it possible for a variety of scorers (KDB, Gundogan, Silva, even Grealish) to get into a groove. City looks like City again, a team that controls the game and keeps opponents off balance, with not one, but six or seven assassins waiting to deliver the knife when they fall. The Haaland experiment, at this moment in time, is a success.

     Don’t get me wrong, there have been many other keys to City’s dominant run of the last several months. Akanji and Ake have been essentially flawless, and were joined in January by our defensive field general, Dias. Rodri’s had a great run of form, DeBruyne has again shown why he’s the world’s most dangerous attacking midfielder, Kyle Walker’s bailed us out with his speed and toughness at key moments, etc. etc.

     But the above three tactical moves are crucial to considering the big question that it’s now finally safe to ask. How did City rescue a season that, for a six week period in the not-so-distant past seemed to be teetering on the brink of serious disappointment? As thought experiments go, it’s a fun one to ask, and try to answer. Way more fun than “Where did it all go wrong?” a question Arsenal, Chelsea, and Spurs fans are all asking this very moment.