The Blues won 1-0 away at Southampton in the final game of the season to clock up a quite remarkable 100-point tally and it’s left the experts debating our place in the pantheon of the greatest English sides of all time.
Let’s start with Gary Neville, who has been unflinching in his praise of City much for the season. The Sky Sports pundit says Pep Guardiola’s side are on a “different level” to the rest of the Premier League.
“In a single season, the stats for Manchester City are incredible, the goals, the points they acquired...they have absolutely blown everyone away, to a point where we haven’t had a race to discuss for the last two or three months,” he said on the Gary Neville Podcast.
“They have been outstanding and on a different level. Champions are consistent, they defend well, they win when they are not at their best, they blow teams away and score three, four, five goals regularly, they keep possession well, they use their energy levels efficiently and Man City have done all of those things. They have been absolutely wonderful.
“I did say last season that I wondered whether the type of football that Pep Guardiola plays would be able to win a Premier League, but he has absolutely answered that question like you wouldn’t believe. It’s been Pep Guardiola’s football. We did quite a lot of Barcelona games in the Champions League when Pep Guardiola was the coach and it was an outstanding team and he’s now got a team playing in exactly the same mould.
“It’s a big jump for everyone to make in the summer, firstly with the right recruitment and getting the right players into the squads to get anywhere near Manchester City. They are well in front.”
Hard to disagree, Gary…
READ: The records City have smashed this season
READ: Centurions! | De Bruyne describes beautiful ending
Moving on, then, to Miguel Delaney’s column in the Independent, in which he says the statistics tell their own story for City this season.
“It was after an extremely rare Manchester City low point in this season of exceptional highs, when Pep Guardiola was “driving himself up the wall” about how they got eliminated from the Champions League by Liverpool, that the players realised they now needed to do something to properly symbolise just how great they’d been,” he writes.
“They have emphatically done that, and may yet go further. Breaking the goals record stands as testament to their claim as the Premier League’s greatest ever attacking team, while breaking the points record will stand as their primary achievement, what will instantly be brought up when their quality is recounted. They have overtaken Chelsea 2004-05 in more than one way.
“To claim the 100 points, then, would be the gold-standard feat to properly emboss their campaign in the way Arsenal’s undefeated league season was.”
And the Manchester Evening News’ Stuart Brennan says City’s “Centurions” have eclipsed Arsenal’s “Invincibles” of 2003-04.
“Jesus shook it all up again by chasing Kevin De Bruyne ‘s astute over-the-top pass and lobbing expertly over Alex McCarthy before celebrating with the ecstatic fans,” he writes.
“That put a fittingly magnificent ending on a quite astonishing season - in fact THE outstanding league season of any team in history.
“Arsenal fans will claim their 2004 Invincibles still hold that honour, having gone the whole season unbeaten, a fabulous achievement in itself.
“But the fact is that the Invincibles chalked up TEN points fewer than Blues, scored 33 goals fewer and City only conceded one more.
“The Blues also won an amazing SIX games more.
“Arsenal’s achievement is rightly lauded – but the fact is that it pales in comparison alongside what City have done this season.
“Avoiding defeat is a bit Mourinho-esque, and the Gunners drew eight games that season.
“City have gone out to win games, and done so in breathtaking style.
“Even in this game, when they were at half-throttle for most of the game, they conjured up something special right at the end to provide the fans with another remarkable memory.”
What a season it’s been!
That’s all for this morning’s roundup, Blues. Stay with us throughout the day as we build up to tonight’s parade across Manchester as Pep and the players show off the Premier League and League Cup trophies!
