Season with City tops the lot for ton-derful Pep!
THE explosion of emotion from Pep Guardiola when Gabriel Jesus dinked the ball home with two seconds of the season remaining spoke for how much the City boss has loved the last year.
After seeing the famine of his first season at the Etihad raked over - a first year without a trophy, the heaviest league defeat, what is tackles? etc etc - the coach has gorged on every opportunity given in a campaign that will take some erasing from both minds and the Premier League record books.
Guardiola has changed his tune on English football, now happy to admit the demands of the league after spending around a year dealing dismissively with questions leading him to compare England to Spain and Germany.
In fairness, no answer could be the right one until he won the title as it was either his BIGGEST CHALLENGE YET or another sign that he didn’t ‘get’ the league... making it an even bigger biggest challenge.
Asked recently about the scale of the achievement, the manager declared it one of his best and added: “This was the hardest one because there are a lot of strong teams and when you play away or when you play at home against lesser teams, they are so strong defensively and physically.
“It is always complicated to win the league and that is why we are so satisfied.”
Little wonder, then, that he appeared in a daze in his final press conference of the season as he talked giddily about reaching 100 points before adding a sobering caveat that it will be ‘ridiculous’ to match the total next year.
As sensible as that sounds, this is far from the first time a Guardiola team has produced an outrageously good season.
Had Jesus not netted deep into injury time against Southampton, for instance, it would not have been a personal best points haul for the manager - who hit more than 90 points three times in four seasons at Barcelona.
The 2011/12 team managed a remarkable 114 goals while his 2013/14 Bayern Munich side dropped just 12 points across 34 games.
If these numbers support Guardiola’s insistence that there are always improvements to be had from games, players and the coaching staff, the fact City have entered into the manager’s hall of fame is yet another reason to savour what has been an unforgettable season - and look forward to what is still to come.