DON’T START CALLING CITY THE BEST EVER — OLIVER HOLT’S COLUMN

United of Keane and Scholes and Liverpool of Dalglish and Hansen put them in the shade

ILOVE watching Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City play football. There are no caveats to that. The beauty of their performances this season has been breathtaking. Their run of 17 straight wins has set new standards in the Premier League both for points at this stage of the season and for aesthetics. I was at the Eti had to see them play Bournemouth yesterday and it was a privilege.

But those who are proclaiming that City are already the greatest team in Premier League history need either to get a grip or reclaim their memory. City have blazed a comet trail but the season is only 19 games old. City have a commanding lead, sure, but this Guardiola creation has not won anything yet. When they do, we can think about handing out the bouquets.

To acclaim them the greatest Premier League team ever, they have to do more than just win the title this season. They have to do what a City side have never done before and defend it successfully. And then they have to win it again. And then they have to win the

BRITISH sprinter Nigel Levine is alleged to have tested positive for the banned asthma drug clenbuterol. Maybe, like salbutamol user Chris Froome, Levine will lecture us on the dangers we pose to asthmatics just by talking about his transgression. Or maybe, if he has any sense of humility, he won’t.

Champions League, too, because that is the final stamp of greatness. It always has been.

I hope they do it. I hope they do all those things. If they do, if they do it playing this way, we are in for one hell of a glorious ride with a team full of magicians like David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling. If they keep this going, if this beauty turns into trophies, then they will deserve every superlative we can chuck at them.

But at the moment, they are not even close to being the greatest ever. If we are talking about the history of English football, then the Liverpool side of the early Eigthies would be hard to beat. What a team that was, a team that had silk and steel, a team that had the genius of Kenny Dalglish, the pace and ruthlessness of Ian Rush, the imperiousness of Graeme Souness and the elegance of Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson.

That Liverpool side was a winning machine that lifted the league title three times in succession between 1981 and 1984 and, with tweaks in personnel, won the European Cup four times between 1977 and 1984. That’s greatness. That’s the benchmark.

And if t he di s cussion is confined to the greatest of the Premier League era, then that accolade belongs to the Manchester United team of the late Nineties and early 2000s, a team that won the league title three years in succession and became the first English team to win the Treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in 1998-99. If there is a rare excitement about witnessing the feats of this City team in the first half of the season, it is important to remember t hat also existed around United in 98-99, too. City are out on their own this season but United’s greatness in that era was framed by their rivalry with a brilliant Arsenal team. That did not take away from their achievements. It added to them.

United were not unbeatable in the way that City have been but they found a way to win the biggest games in a manner that was testimony not just to their ability but to their character. They never knew they were beaten. They thrived on adversity. We don’t know yet how this City team will react when things get tough, as they surely will at some point, particularly in the Champions League. That indomitability was what made reporting on United in that 1998-99 season, in particular, feel as if you were in on something special. It was the way, when it mattered most, that they refused to lose. It happened time and again as they forged on towards an achievement that remains unique in the English game.

It happened in the FA Cup semifinal replay when United played the last half an hour of normal time against Arsenal with 10 men after Roy Keane was sent off. Then Peter Schmeichel saved a penalty from Dennis Bergkamp that would have won the game for Arsene Wenger’s side. Some people said that was luck. It wasn’t luck. It was nerve. Ryan Giggs won t hat semi- final for United in extra time with that famous solo goal when he slalomed past most of the Arsenal defence. It was not unusual for United to confound the odds like that. They came from behind to beat Spurs in the last league game of the season, a match they had to win to clinch the title.

And in the biggest game of all, the Champions League final of 1999 at the Nou Camp, when the weight of history bore down on them and they were outplayed by Bayern Munich, they still did not wilt. Somehow, with their best two players suspended, they conjured that miraculous comeback, those two goals in two minutes from two substitutes, to lift the trophy that had eluded them for so long.

Part of the thrill of watching this City team is that those kinds of tests still lie ahead. We do not know yet how good they could become. We do not know if the team will stay together or if it will be broken up. We do not know whether even better players will arrive.

What we do know is that they are a brilliant side who have touched greatness. And a team that cannot yet be put in the same bracket as the United of Keane, Paul Scholes and Giggs and the Liverpool of Dalglish, Souness and Hansen.