Welcome to Pep in April – the serial title avenger with Arsenal in his sights | Barney Ronay

“I have a particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. I may stumble a little in the autumn. I may get a little caustic with a TV camera crew or sarcastically applaud a referee. But I will pursue you. I will hunt you down. I will, in all likelihood, narrowly pip you to the line in an agonising title chase.”

Welcome to Pep in April, the franchise. In which a furiously intense, bald, skinny man becomes a serial springtime league title avenger. At the finish of what was by the end a celebratory, one-hand-on-the-wheel 3-0 win at Stamford Bridge, Manchester City’s record in April in the past four years reads: played 23, won 19, drawn four across all competitions.

The league title is now “in their own hands”. True, it’s also in Arsenal’s hands. But City’s hands look steadier, meatier, more tightly coiled on the rope. Even the key moment on Sunday had an air of cinema, montage content, emotional weight.

There were almost 51 minutes gone when Nico O’Reilly scored the opening goal with a close-in header right in front of the City fans. It was almost a free header, goalkeeper still on his line. Mainly it was a moment with a sense of wider forces in motion.

The sun had lingered in that corner, sneaking in over the lip of the stand, just enough to bathe the City fans in thin yellow light as O’Reilly ran towards them, an academy boy celebrating a potentially title-swinging goal. Even City’s shirts looked startling and luminous, the edgy blue and yellow tie-dye-style away kit that looks like the costume from a 1980s ITV sci-fi drama, or like a collection of agricultural fertiliser bags stapled together, either is fine.

City would go on to score three times in the space of 17 minutes, Marc Guéhi and Jérémy Doku adding the others, as Chelsea’s midfield and defence parted like a shop-worn bead curtain.

So here we are, staring at the decisive vibe shift. This season has often felt like a prelude to something happening, a pre-narrative. Every time it seems like some decisive turn is about to emerge the action has simply meandered on. The car chase that evaporates into an incident with a faulty starter motor. The fight scene where everyone just decides to talk about it instead.

Maybe this is the story. Collapse. Pain. An all-out Arsenal-ing. It has already been hard to watch Arsenal’s contortions, from surely the most agonised nine-point title lead ever assembled, to the invertebrate defeat by Bournemouth at home on Saturday.

Lose in midweek, lose to City next weekend and Arsenal now have the chance to lose an entire quadruple in 16 days and six matches. There will surely be more twists. But the scaffolding is in place. And it already feels a bit much, a little gratuitous. Maybe those remaining games should be pixelated, or come with some kind of trigger warning.

Pep Guardiola tries to console Cole Palmer after Manchester City’s victory. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

This is how it can go in the league now. City ended the day six points off the top with a game in hand. Win at the Etihad Stadium next Sunday and that goes to three points. City then play their game in hand on the Wednesday, Burnley away. Win and the points are level at the top, Arsenal already in turnaround, a team running the wrong way along the travelator.

By contrast City are playing with a rare spring-time alpha dog energy. In their past three games they have beaten the league leaders, the title holders and the club world champions. Nine goals scored, none conceded, five different goalscorers. This is a team that can now afford to win quite comfortably even while its centre-forward basically jogs around quite near a football match.

The poverty of Chelsea’s performance is perhaps just as relevant to the state of the league overall. Liam Rosenior looks like a manager: gleaming white trainers, alpha bloke knitwear. But he has now played six games against Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Mikel Arteta and lost all of them. This is unsurprising. Rosenior has zero experience at this level, has entered in mid-season, taking over a light‑entertainment project, a talent clearing house, the team that isn’t a team.

Chelsea showed some energy on the break in the first half. Guardiola looked vaguely alarmed at times, striding his rectangle in anorak-jerkin and dark brown business shoes, like an actuary on a hiking tour. In between it was notable how big City are now, Bernardo Silva scurrying about like a captive prince in between this collection of units and beefcakes.

Guardiola is just such an old hand at this. The recent additions, many bolted into place on the hoof, have become key players. The Premier League should probably be pleased at this turn of events. City at least look like a functional high-end football team. They look title-curious. They look non-terrified. They look like they know that it is to win. By the end they looked like a team taking a decisive step in a season finally finding its shape.