OPINION – Pep’s relentless Man City are almost impossible to beat

Pep Guardiola hinted after Manchester City had captured their fourth consecutive English Premier League title on Sunday that he could leave the club at the end of next season.

City’s Premier League rivals would be forgiven for getting out the celebratory champagne if this eventuality does come around, so dominant have the Manchester side become under Guardiola’s leadership.

There wasn’t much more this season that Arsenal could have done to capture a first league title since 2004. Mikel Arteta’s side won 16 of their last 18 Premier League matches, and in that time they also drew with City away from home.

You could nitpick at the fact that the Gunners lost at home to Aston Villa, but the 89 points they did manage to amass were just one less than Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal managed in going unbeaten in their 2003/4 ‘Invincibles’ campaign.

The problem is, as Liverpool also found out under Jurgen Klopp (with the exception of the 2019/20 season), that City are a relentless machine.

Liverpool got 97 points in the 2018/19 season, and still lost the title to City by a point, and reached 92 points in the 2021/22 season and again lost the title by a point to Guardiola.

So maybe Arsenal could have actually done a bit more. But Arteta’s men would probably just have found that City would have upped the ante, grabbed a handful more points, and finished ahead of them anyway.

The lion pounces

When Arsenal lost to Villa on April 14, and City knew winning their last six games would seal the deal, they didn’t just complete the job, they did so in the manner of a lion savaging its prey.

Guardiola’s side scored 20 goals in their last six matches, conceding just two. There was so little jeopardy, bar maybe Son Heung-Min’s miss for Spurs in the penultimate game.

It has all, of course, got plenty to do with City’s ridiculous financial wealth, with 115 unresolved Premier League charges also casting a cloud over their achievements.

But that should not take away from Guardiola’s brilliance, in building a team that continues to break all kinds of Premier League records.