Amid the excited chatter and buzz of yet another Premier League season finale, Manchester City’s inexorable progress towards what would be an unprecedented and quite stunning successive treble continues in near silence.
This isn’t some sly dig at the atmosphere at the Etihad. That’s for others to discuss. Personally, I’ve never found anything wrong with it.
No, that’s not it. It’s a reference to – I think – how a lion hunts. Or how a cobra moves through the grass. Quiet. Without fuss. But with success. Oh so predictably successful.
Because this is the modern city. All that noisy neighbor stuff from the early Abu Dhabi era is no more. The heady thrill of the number one Premier League title in 2012 exists only in the mind and in mobile phone images. Even the initial sex appeal of Pep Guardiola’s football has faded into something less expansive. More risk averse and predictable. And there’s that word again. Predictable. It follows City everywhere in a way that it has never seen before in our lifetimes in relation to an English football club.
Can we say with certainty that City will win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League for the second season in a row? No, we can’t.
Manchester City juggernaut went on to beat Luton in the FA Cup on Wednesday
City set another marker after beating Luton 6-2 to keep their quest for the Treble alive
Pep Guardiola’s team wants to repeat last season’s performance by winning the Treble again
Mail Sport’s Ian Ladyman believes City are winning ruthlessly and quietly in a way that is foreign to us
Your browser does not support iframes.
Does it look like a pretty solid bet right now? It absolutely has to.
Because for that to not happen, someone will have to beat them and the further we get in Guardiola’s time at City, the less often that happens, especially at this stage of the season.
So despite the emotions attached to Jurgen Klopp’s latest spell at Liverpool, the adrenaline of Arsenal’s return to form and prominence in the title race under Mikel Arteta and all the persistent talk surrounding managers like Erik ten Hag and Eddie Howe, the real story of this is The season is simmering beneath the surface again. Manchester City is that story. Again. It’s just sometimes hard to notice.
City last lost a football match on December 6, 2023, 1-0 away to Aston Villa. They have lost once in a run of 28 games in all competitions dating back to early October. Recently they played averagely by drawing against Chelsea and winning 1-0 at Bournemouth, and the foolish and desperate started talking about a dip in form. And then they went to Luton in the FA Cup and scored six and that ended all that.
And that’s what this city does. They win ruthlessly and quietly in a way that was previously foreign to us. And that’s why a second treble is as good as it gets.
Will Manchester United beat them in the Premier League on Sunday? Highly unlikely. FC Copenhagen in the Champions League next Wednesday? No chance. Newcastle in the FA Cup? Hard to see it. Liverpool a week at Anfield on Sunday? Maybe, but even if they do, would the smart money really go to Klopp’s injury-hit, overloaded team keeping City at bay for the ten games that would then remain?
Absolutely everything City do will be viewed with raised eyebrows until the issue of their 115 Premier League charges is resolved. For some, nothing they do will mean much until they can prove they are financially healthy. I understand that.
You have to go back to December 6, 2023 for the last time City lost a match – at Aston Villa
However, that doesn’t blind us all to what they do on the pitch and in particular the influence Guardiola has on the way football is played in this country.
We will miss Klopp when he leaves. We owe a lot to the Liverpool manager. We will miss the ruthless theater of his team’s football. But he won’t leave a footprint as big as Guardiola’s if he follows him.
I was listening to Wayne Rooney’s talk on a Gary Neville podcast this week and the former United striker talked about how he tried to implement some of Guardiola’s use of wing-backs during his time as manager at Birmingham City. We can laugh about it because it didn’t work. Rooney was sacked after fifteen games.
But talk to coaches in England at all levels of the pyramid and Guardiola’s teachings and sermons are the ones that many of them return to again and again. Smart football men and women who want to get better at what they do will be guided by what happens at the Etihad on Saturday.
If City wins the treble again, will that be good for our game? I don’t see why that isn’t the case. Whether they approve of their methods or not, Guardiola’s City have been at the top of the pyramid for so long. It’s up to the rest to follow.
There are stories and plots all over the Premier League at the moment. City are rarely one of them, but a hard truth remains. The real cold force continues to wear sky blue.
Guardiola’s innovations with his wing-backs are a tactic that many in England are trying to copy
If United want a new ground THEY have to pay for it
Sir Jim Ratcliffe has drawn some criticism over his suggestion that a new Manchester United stadium could be partly funded by the taxpayer.
Ratcliffe can dress it up any way he wants. He can call it the regeneration of Trafford Park. He can talk about building a Wembley for the North.
But the bottom line is that United’s majority owners remain within the Glazer family. Since taking over the club in 2005, the Floridians have extracted more than £1.5 billion from United.
So even the faintest whisper that even one cent should come from the public treasury for a new stadium is as insulting as it is ridiculous. If United want to build a new ground, they have to pay for it themselves. Just like everyone else.
Plans are being discussed to redevelop Old Trafford or create an entirely new ground
Sir Jim Ratcliffe said this month that United would consider all options when it came to the ground
Strange timing for the FA Cup draw
I was dismissive of the FA Cup being played in midweek, but I was completely wrong.
The last few days have felt like an event and have been helped by compelling matches at Ewood Park, Stamford Bridge and the City Ground.
It was a shame, then, that someone suggested the basket case idea of holding the quarter-final draw an hour before Wednesday’s fifth round had even taken place.
Football. It doesn’t always help itself, right?
Everton’s financing approach is still wrong, despite a justified appeal
A 10-point penalty for Everton’s breach of profit and sustainability laws was too high. It is right that it has now been reduced.
But to portray this as a justification for the Merseyside club’s funding approach is completely wrong. Everton played it fast and loose in the margins and messed it up.
That part remains unchanged.
Everton’s 10-point penalty for breaching Premier League spending rules reduced to six after appeal
Warning for Kop children
It was at Anfield in November 2016 that 17-year-old Ben Woodburn eclipsed Michael Owen to become Liverpool’s youngest ever goalscorer with a goal against Leeds in the League Cup.
The next day we reproduced a comment from our Secret Scout column that was running at the time. Our mystery man had a damn good hit and had scouted Woodburn two months earlier and wrote: ‘If he keeps progressing he’ll be worth a lot of money. Liverpool appear to have a successor for Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen.’
Woodburn is now 24 and a Wales international. He has quite a career. But it’s not at Liverpool. He made one Premier League start and three in the FA Cup and after loans to Sheffield United, Oxford, Blackpool and Hearts he has now settled permanently at Preston, for whom he made twelve championship starts and 44 substitute appearances in a season and a half.
Ben Woodburn was tipped for great things at Liverpool but never reached his potential
It’s great when we see young talent break through, as has happened at Liverpool in the last six days. It lifts the heart. But the biggest challenge for Bobby Clark, Lewis Koumas, Jayden Danns, Trey Nyoni and the rest is moving forward from here.
If Klopp’s successor in two years’ time has even one of them as a regular in his Premier League team, it will – as desperately sour as it sounds – be a very good return indeed.