Man City aiming to be mad March hares as Pep Guardiola's 'supermen' 'accept the challenge' of a season-defining month

Pep Guardiola described his players the other night as ‘supermen’. It is a slight twist on the theme that he had spent the previous few hours on the touchline resembling a hopping-mad Lex Luthor as one plot after another came up short against Bournemouth.

But a win is a win at this stage in the season and sometimes, to an artistic mastermind such as Guardiola, there is deeper satisfaction when Manchester City achieve victory through grind and good fortune rather than beauty and design. Saturday sat well within that category.

Guardiola went to great lengths in his assessment to describe the scheduling burden on his men and the numbers back his view. So does the visible fatigue of those reigning champions, which was clear to see after their third game in eight days — they looked as though they are running close to empty, not least Erling Haaland, and their manager was rather creative in how he described it.

For instance, Tuesday’s home win over Brentford was compared to a trip to the ‘dentist without anaesthetic’, so it might not be a wise time to point out Liverpool have played one more game than City’s 19 since the beginning of December.

Both of those teams are battling exhaustion magnificently in a three-way title race, with Arsenal sprinting on slightly fresher legs, and it is a treat for those of us watching without the accompanying buzz of the dentist’s drill.

‘Of course we are tired,’ said Guardiola, whose side go again on Tuesday in the FA Cup against Luton before a campaign-defining March run against Manchester United, Copenhagen, Liverpool, Brighton and Arsenal. ‘I know it’s difficult. I’ve seen my players. Brentford was like going to the dentist without anaesthetic.

‘Do you know why we played against Brentford?