This Premier League may yet be Pep Guardiola’s greatest so far

Guardiola has effectively built a new team with a new style in a year in which his greatest rival Jurgen Klopp could not adjust his style of play to suit the pandemic

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola. Photo: Rui Vieira/PA 

Manchester City are within touching distance of another Premier League title and there’s a strong argument to say it will be Pep Guardiola’s greatest so far.

City fans will never forget the first time the noisy neighbours roared under their talismanic manager, given that his team amassed a record 100 points, finished 18 clear of derby rivals Manchester United, and scored 106 goals in 2018.

Then there was a memorable finish to the 2018-19 season in which City won their final 14 league games in a row to overhaul Liverpool and clinch the title on the final day of the season with a 4-1 victory at Brighton & Hove Albion.

What Guardiola achieved in both those campaigns was remarkable and his team’s stylish performances not only won them trophies but revolutionised the way Premier League football was played by other clubs too.

There’s no doubt that both seasons go down in the top six City campaigns of all time, sitting somewhere in and around the victories of 1968,1937 and 2014, and below the legendary 2011-12 season when ‘that’ Sergio Aguero goal against QPR in the last minute of the campaign sealed the most memorable title win of all.

Even so, what his side has done this season, in the most complicated and challenging environments football has seen since the War, deserves to nestle in behind Aguero’s moment of genius given how difficult it was to achieve.

City, remember, finished 18 points behind runaway champions Liverpool last season after a campaign in which they were blown away by Jurgen Klopp’s heavy metal, high-pressing football and looked defensively shaky when under pressure, unable to cope without former captain Vincent Kompany.

There was barely a pundit in football who didn’t expect Liverpool to win it again this season and, even considering the money spent in the transfer window, most tipped City to miss out again.

But Guardiola has effectively built a new team with a new style. One that doesn’t rely on Aguero, even though he started at Leicester and played well during a convincing 2-0 victory sealed by goals from Benjamin Mendy and Gabriel Jesus. One that doesn’t score as many goals, but which defends resolutely, barely gives the ball away and has enough finishing power to get over the line — even if the big scores of the past have largely been missing.

In a year in which his greatest rival Klopp could not adjust his style of play to suit the pandemic, Guardiola played a masterstroke, and his side are already champions-elect, with 74 points on the board and seven games to go.

This City side cannot match the 100 points of 2018, but they win in a different way that is just as convincing despite the less extravagant scoreline.

Once again superbly conducted and cajoled by midfield magician Kevin de Bruyne, they dominated almost the entire first half against a Leicester side that has proved to be a consistent top-four contender this season. The goal didn’t come easily but City’s patience never wavered as they mounted wave after wave of well-crafted attacks before Mendy finally broke the deadlock with a clinical finish and then sealed it when Jesus was set up by Raheem Sterling.

When Leicester did manage to escape on the break, Laporte and Dias were outstanding at the back, and the visitors didn’t even need John Stones, transformed into a world-class defender by Guardiola this season.

City have now won every single game, bar a disappointing defeat to United last month, since drawing with West Brom in mid-December, and their consistency in a season in which teams are being asked to play up to three times a week has been relentless, in fact bordering on miraculous.

Leicester, too, have improved during what for others has been a complicated campaign but they found Guardiola’s side a very different one to the team they famously beat 5-2 last September; a memory which highlights the quality of Guardiola’s achievement given that his side sat 13th in the Premier League that day.

The turnaround, in a year in which Liverpool collapsed, has been spectacular and their Champions League dream is also still alive in a week in which City face Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday before Leeds next weekend.

The title, you suspect, will be won in the next few games and that means there will be no last-minute-of-the-season clincher this time, and no last-gasp drama. But Aguero’s farewell campaign, having announced he will leave at the end of the season, should be regarded an achievement of the same level as 2012, given what City and all the football world, had to deal with.