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City have the best team in the Premier League.

Unfortunately for them, the best team never wins the title – the best, or the luckiest, squad does.

And, as now seems likely, if the Blues end up as also-rans in the race for this year’s crown, Manuel Pellegrini needs to assess whether he has the squad to challenge on several fronts, and whether he has managed to extract the best out of his small group of first-team players.

With five games left he might also ponder how he can freshen up his team to try to ensure they finish the season with 15 points more than they have now, and have no regrets should Liverpool and Chelsea blow up.

When the Blues field their strongest eleven, they will beat anyone in England.

The strongest team will always be a matter for debate, but we venture to suggest that taken over the whole season, it might read: Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy, Silva, Fernandinho, Toure, Nasri, Aguero, Negredo.

That team has not started a game ONCE this season, for a variety of reasons including injury, loss of form and rotation.

But that has not been the problem. City have a strong core of top-class players on whom they rely heavily.

M.E.N. Sport said months ago that the Blues’ problem lies in the fact that if you lose two or three of those core players – Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero – they become a far less frightening team.

That was hugely evident on Wednesday night when, with Toure and Silva out injured, Kompany and Aguero less than fully fit and Zabaleta taking another physical battering, they meekly drew with Sunderland.

Fernandinho is close to being included in that elite group, and the way Manuel Pellegrini has had to lean on him this season, with Javi Garcia not giving the same and Jack Rodwell constantly injured, has taken a clear toll.

Fernandinho himself suggested that the rigours of a season when they have played 52 matches already – compared to Liverpool’s 39 – have affected the team.

Chelsea have played 51 matches but they have a stronger squad.

Liverpool’s squad has not been so thinly stretched, without European football and after early exits from the domestic cups.

And, while no-one should take away from a superb season by Brendan Rodgers’ team, they have been blessed in the fact that Luis Suarez – their one truly world-class player – has started all 29 games since returning from his suspension in the first six of the season.

When you add the fact that their other key players have also avoided injury trouble – with Steven Gerrard playing 30 league games, Philippe Coutinho 29, Raheem Sterling 29 and Daniel Sturridge 26 – and it is fair to say luck has played its part.

By comparison, Aguero has played 19, Kompany 23 and Silva 23, not to mention lengthy injury absences for Stevan Jovetic, Micah Richards, Rodwell and Matija Nastasic.

Of course, that cannot be an excuse for a club of City’s resources but the under-studies are either not quite good enough or have not been given a real chance by Pellegrini.

The home game with West Brom on Monday is the Blues’ last-chance saloon.

Hopefully, Silva will return but Pellegrini has hard decisions to make.

Unless Kompany recovers significantly in the next few days, it may be time to rest his troublesome knee – he deserves the chance to lead Belgium at the World Cup finals, and playing with such a problem cannot be good.

Martin Demichelis has stepped up to become a real defensive kingpin, and Joleon Lescott would relish a City swansong before he leaves.

The same could be applied to Richards at right-back, and Zabaleta could be sent to bathe his battle scars in a tub of balm for a week.