While there has long been an inevitability about Manchester City’s fifth top-tier league title in English football, even manager Pep Guardiola probably never envisaged the ease with which it would ultimately be achieved.
Despite its recent slip-up against chief pursuer Manchester United, City looks on course to register more points (current record is 95) and more wins (currrent record is 30) than any previous champion. Along the way, it also put together the longest winning run in English top-flight history.
Not too many observers saw those sort of records tumbling after Guardiola’s first season of acclimatisation. But a frantic pre-season transfer window turbo-charged the team and City out-passed and out-scored everyone else.
Pace and power
In place of ageing full-backs and a creaking goalkeeper came the pace and power of Kyle Walker, Benjamin Mendy and Danilo, backed by the calm assurance of Brazil’s Ederson between the posts. Mendy got injured but there was no stopping City.
Other players, like Raheem Sterling, knew they had to shape up to even feature in such a competitive environment. Kevin De Bruyne discovered the form of his life, David Silva excelled and Sergio Aguero continued to score at a rate no other City striker has ever managed.
After eight games, City was alone at the top, rapidly establishing a five-point gap, followed by eight and then 15 points after 15 games.
Record run
By Christmas, City was already putting together 18 consecutive victories — only one short of Bayern Munich’s major league record, also set under Guardiola.
Along the way, it beat Liverpool 5-0, Watford 6-0, Crystal Palace 5-0, Stoke City 7-2, Arsenal 3-1, Manchester United 2-1, Swansea City 4-0, Tottenham Hotspur 4-1 and Bournemouth 4-0 before eventually drawing 0-0 with Palace on New Year’s Eve.
Guardiola’s response was to spend a club record £57 million on Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao in January, taking his spending to an eye-watering £448 million on 16 players since arriving.
Cynics moaned that City was buying the title, but at least it did so by bringing in the right players.
By contrast, Manchester rival United never got the same bang for its bucks and appeared to pay over the top to snatch Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez from under City’s noses in the same window.
For all the expensive arrivals at Old Trafford over the past year, the gap never closed. City scored more goals, shared among more players, had more shots and even hit the woodwork more times than anyone else.
At the heart of those statistics was De Bruyne, who since the start of the 2015-16 campaign has provided more assists than any other player in the top five European leagues. “He can do everything on the pitch. And, in terms of mentality as well, he never hides,” said Guardiola. “The big players you realise (who they are) in the bad moments, the bad moments in terms of 75 minutes, (if) we are losing, how you react in that situation.”
De Bruyne’s work-rate and ability to produce a never-ending procession of pinpoint passes took City to a new level which only Liverpool approached.
Juergen Klopp’s side was the first to beat City in the league, blitzing it at Anfield with the help of Mohamed Salah, and then embarrassed it in the Champions League.
But most other times City took to the field, it was only ever a question of whether the opposition could contain it. More often than not, the answer was no.
