‘They are so special, so resilient’: Manchester City celebrate Premier League title like no other
Manchester City supporters celebrate outside the Etihad Stadium. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
At the fourth time of asking, Manchester City were crowned Premier League champions and wasted no time in marking the feat, a banner proclaiming that achievement being unfurled at their Etihad Stadium within seconds of the final whistle at Old Trafford.
Three times in recent weeks, Pep Guardiola could have been crowned champion for the third time in the past four seasons - the fifth for his club in the last ten.
And with the Catalan coach still playing for a Champions League trophy in a little over two weeks and clearly as motivated as ever, their rivals should look anxiously in the direction of City and the Abu Dhabi owners whose money has re-shaped English football so emphatically over the past decade.
This was City’s 16th domestic trophy since lifting the FA Cup in 2011, a title victory the club quickly dedicated to the legendary superstar Colin Bell who passed away this season and whose name is already emblazoned on one of the stands at the Etihad.
For Guardiola, the success just cements his claim to be the greatest manager of the modern era of European football, maybe the greatest ever, with his ninth major league title in his 12 seasons with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City.
Indeed, it is far quicker to name the years in which Guardiola has won the league - 2012 in Spain; 2017 and 2020 in England - than to list the seasons in which he has.
But this season’s success, so fraught and challenging for so many different reasons, is one that seems destined to live slightly longer in the memory, even if it ultimately took slightly longer to clinch than it might.
“This has been a season and a Premier League title like no other,” said Guardiola. “This was the hardest one. We will always remember this season for the way that we won. I am so proud to be the manager here and of this group of players.
“They are so special. To come through this season – with all the restrictions and difficulties we’ve faced – and show the consistency we have is remarkable. It is relentless. Every single day, they are there, fighting for success, trying always to be better. They have been so, so resilient.”
Resilient and injury-free. Guardiola commented only on Friday how fortunate his squad had been to avoid some of the devastating long-term injuries that had afflicted their rivals - defending champions Liverpool more than any.
Even the loss of the peerless club-record goalscorer Sergio Aguero for practically the whole year, followed at various points by injury to the only other recognised striker Gabriel Jesus, was no problem, thanks to the genius of Guardiola.
The phrase “false nine” has become commonplace now, thanks to the City manager who has had league goals scored by 16 different players and whose leading goalscorer is midfielder Ilkay Gundogan, with 12.
This season's success is all the more remarkable given that City actually lost last season’s title by a staggering 18 points to Jurgen Klopp, a distant memory once Guardiola pulled his team together after a slow start to the campaign that was impacted by various outbreaks of Covid-19.
By the time he lost to Tottenham in late November, Guardiola was eight points off top, languishing in 11th place, and seemingly destined for another season of question marks over whether he had lost his drive and a touch that has so often seemed to have been blessed by the hand of the football gods.
But after that Spurs defeat, City embarked on a 28-game unbeaten run in all competitions, the last 21 of them victories, to effectively wrap up the title in a spell of consistency that underlined that as well as highly-paid, and expensively-assembled, players, Guardiola also has a team packed with resilience and togetherness.
"I am so proud and so happy with what we have achieved," said veteran captain Fernandinho. "The Premier League is the hardest league in world football - every single match is tough. To win it again means the world to me and the rest of the squad.”
Pre-prepared and anodyne as that quote may have been, anyone who has seen City sweep all before them this season would concur that this is a special collection of players who may yet be ready to write another chapter in their incredible run of success, in the Champions League Final date with Chelsea.
And for the pretenders to City’s role as the most dominant team in English football, now and possibly for years to come, there is always next year.
“Of course it’s not a position we want to be in but we are realistic and the sensible answer is we pushed them until the last 10 or 12 days of the season,” said Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer of his team’s hopes of competing for next year’s title.
“They’ve been lauded, and rightly so, as one of the best teams there has been in the Premier League. They’ve shown where the bar is. But that’s where we’re at. We’ve got to be big enough to hold our hands up. I don’t mind that.
“We know we want to get there, that's the next step we have to make, and hopefully we can come together as a team and a club and push next season.”
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