The Warm-Up: Man City on brink of next season's title too

Manchester City transparently have one of the best attacks ever assembled in the Premier League. Against Manchester United last weekend, for long spells Raheem Sterling was playing as a false nine while Gabriel Jesus, one of the most prolific young forwards ever seen in the Prem, played on the opposite flank to the electric Leroy Sane and the club’s all-time record goalscorer, Sergio Aguero, sat on the bench.

When you add in one of the top flight’s most talented ever midfields – Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva? That's just ridiculous – and a coach in Pep Guardiola who now has the record for consecutive league wins in Spain, Germany and England and it’s clear to see why they are top of the pile, having dropped just two points so far all season.

The only sticking point is a defence which in the second half against United was comprised of Kyle Walker, Nicolas Otamendi, Eliaquim Mangala and Fabian Delph. Guardiola is such a great coach, and his teams so good at keeping the ball, that even average defenders can be made to look quite impressive in his teams, let alone makeshift left-backs who are actually midfielders. But still, anyone looking for a chink in the City armour would find it to the rear.

So what to make of the news, on the back page of The Times this morning, that City are already lining up a £70m January move for Southampton centre-back Virgil van Dijk, one of the most impressive defenders in England?

Arsenal and Liverpool are also said to be interested but obviously have no chance when City can effectively guarantee that if the Dutchman joins in January he will have a Premier League winner’s medal by May. If they get their man, City won’t just have this season’s title wrapped up by the spring but potentially next season’s too.

Good news for Everton, who have tied impressive youngsters Jonjoe Kenny, Mason Holgate and Dominic Calvert-Lewin down to new contracts. Kenny and Holgate are now committed to the club until 2022 while Calvert-Lewin will be there until at least the end of their Premier League title-winning season of 2022-23. Sam Allardyce said:

Yes, yes. But why do they look like they’ve just got through to judges’ houses in the Northern-only version of X-Factor?

The Football Association has added to the big pile of work marked ‘Manchester derby fall-out’ by asking Jose Mourinho to clarify the comments he made prior to the chasing his side got at Old Trafford.

The FA hasn’t specified which comments in particular it needs assistance understanding, although Mourinho did say of City, "If you ask me one thing that I don't like a lot it's that they lose their balance very easily. You know, a little bit of wind and they fall."

If this was indeed the act of mind games the FA feared would influence the match officials, it clearly worked as Ander Herrera was booked for diving in an attempt to win a penalty. Nice of Mourinho to flag that up as a potential issue before the game.

Paul Pogba has a new haircut which is bound to anger some joyless people and inject just the right amount of disgust to fuel them through the weekend.

This tiny European state gets to enjoy a moment in the sun about as frequently as one of those freaky-looking fish which live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench and can only see through the inky darkness thanks to bioluminescence. But yesterday they caught a brief, sweet hit of Vitamin D with a 2-1 win over Qatar. It was their first win in 23 games, stretching back to a famous 1-0 win over San Marino.

Um, guys, you know you are going to be playing in the World Cup in four-and-and-a-half years, right? I mean, obviously no-one hopes it actually comes to that and FIFA find it in themselves to strip the country of what will be a laughably immoral tournament – but it seems unlikely at this point. A 2-1 defeat to 10-man Liechtenstein? Better get practicing.

Credit to beInSPORT for allowing Richard Keys to hijack a good four minutes of their broadcast to try and advance his amazing conspiracy theory that Jose Mourinho was actually saying “diver-City” and not “diversity” when trying to explain Milkgate this week. A tweet is one thing, but this is like Glenn Beck at his worst. All that was missing was two huge chalkboards and some increasingly manic scrawls.

“Social media is not convinced,” says Keys at one point. Yeah, nor is anyone else.

A dusting of decent European matches with St Etienne v Monaco, Sevilla v Levante and Gladbach v Hamburg, if you want to see the teams which will be making up the last-32 of the Europa League next season. Back in Blighty, Sheffield Wednesday v Wolves is your Friday offering.