Looking at Manchester City's Run In

It is true that the past few weeks have been a mix of emotions for City fans. The announcement that Pep Guardiola would be our new head coach next season wasn't the greatest kept secrets on the footballing world and, could possibly, be the most harmful in the short term for the club.

Of course, the amount of games coming for City, who are still in every competition, along with injuries, is no doubt, also a factor.

But why were there no purchases in the January transfer window? Was it simply that the club didn't feel reinforcements were needed for the run in, even though our injury list was quite impressive. Was it because money was not to be made available to a manager who was to be with the club in less than five more months, or a current manager not wanting the next manager giving him a to buy list?

Whatever the reason, the time to address that aspect has gone, and now February is a very important month for the Blues. Leaving the League to one side for a moment we have three important games in three different competitions.
At the end of the month we have the League Cup Final. With the replay result against West Ham, this now signals Liverpool's only chance of silverware this season. For City it is also an important game and a win could kick start a League run in, as it did in Pellegrini's first season. Win or lose, that competition will end before March arrives, no more replays and schedule congestion.

The FA Cup earlier on in the month is a different story though. Facing a struggling Chelsea this too is their only real chance of silverware this season. If fixture congestion is a worry then I would certainly put a reserve side into this game with the potential elimination so that we can focus on the Champions League game three days later.
Speaking of the Champions League, this season represents the best chance we have had to get past the last 16. When the return leg against Dynamo Kiev takes place City would have wrapped up the League Cup and what a potential double that could be!

This leaves the league to look at and stats recently shown on a certain sports website in England would have you believe that City have no chance. In their report they stated the average Premier League winning points total is around 85 points, and that City averaged 29 points from now until the end of the season.

Clearly, even if we were to get all those points, this would still leave us a good nine points behind the eventual winners. But this hasn't been a standard Premiership season and I highly doubt the eventual winners would get to 80 points, in fact I see the winners being closer to 75 points than 85!

The key for this season could be Manchester United. All top four teams have to play Van Gaal's side, City host them in March, after Arsenal had been to Old Trafford a month earlier. In April Spurs host while Leicester travel to Manchester as the season comes down to the wire.

The other aspect to look at is if the top four have to play each other. Arsenal play all three of the other contenders and, with the exception of this weekends game, all are away from the Emirates.

You have to think that Leicester will fall away at some point as the season winds down and that penultimate game at the Etihad could very well be a title decider.

Can City win the League this season, I'm not sure. Are the definitely out of the running, absolutely not.