It is hard to remember a side as ruthless as this current crop at Manchester City. Pep Guardiola has been in England for five years now and has managed to build a side as devastating as they are beautiful to watch. The Spaniard has been in management for a long time now and revolutionised the way we perceive modern football, developing the tiki-taka game he began at Barcelona with to adapt to the physicality and intense demands of the Premier League.
While life in England didn’t start as the Spaniard had planned, requiring a lot of new players and a first season out of the title race to be more integrated to the culture and the style of play on British shores, from there he has carried the baton almost every step of the way, winning three of the last four league titles and battling with a fantastic Liverpool team, seeing off their noisy neighbours Manchester United and currently lead the odds to win Premier League 2021/22.
You would think after picking up so much silverware and garnering so much success in recent years that City, like so many great teams inevitably do, start to burn out and lose motivation, and perhaps at times during the 19/20 season they did, but it was only down to Liverpool’s incredibly high standards that the Citizens weren’t up to task. The season before went right down to the wire, with City requiring 98 points and a Vincent Kompany thunderbolt to retain their record-breaking title the year before where they finished with 100 points — Centurions.
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Last year was more routine at the Etihad. Despite the coronavirus pandemic forcing games behind closed doors, City continued to rule the roost in English football, picking up a league and cup double which would have tasted all the sweeter with scattered flickers of Sky Blue entwined with the empty red seats in the away end at Wembley for their late win against Spurs. This season looks a lot more competitive, with the aforementioned Liverpool and Chelsea, who denied City a first ever Champions League title, all in contention of picking up the title come May.
So much has been said about the January transfer window and Africa Cup of Nations, and with City unable to pick up a striker over the summer after seeing transfer attempts for Harry Kane spurned, they might have the resources and recruitment necessary to retain their title, although Guardiola believes the talk over how competitive the race is gets exaggerated once again.
“Every season is the same question after 10, 15, 20 fixtures; ‘this is the most exciting Premier League ever exists in the universe’,” he said. “It’s nice, but it’s just one quarter of the season (gone). All three teams are good, with many, many games to play. European games (come) back in February, FA Cup in January. Many things will happen. So far, at Manchester City, we are satisfied with what we have done so far.”
With City picking up 12 wins from 14 games and sitting top of the table at the time of writing, few would back against them in the Premier League predictions this weekend or indeed to pick up another title as well as compete for that illusive Champions League medal.
For Guardiola, last season marked a decade without winning the big eared trophy and for all the domestic success he has enjoyed in recent years, you get the sense he would give all his other silverware for one more shot at a Champions League with City, especially as the next few years look to be the Autumn of his time at the Etihad.
