Without question, Manchester City have been the dominant force in English football this season. Pep Guardiola’s second year in charge of the club has seen the former Barcelona and Bayern manager deliver his first pieces of silverware on these shores.

A comprehensive win in the Carabao Cup Final over Arsenal in late February was the first of the two trophies that Manchester City won this season, with the other of course being their Premier League success, which resulted in an open-top bus parade to celebrate their fantastic achievement.

They have been head and shoulders above the rest in England’s top flight, with many having them down as champions elect even before the halfway point of the campaign.

Although talk of a quadruple had to be muted after defeats to Wigan in the FA Cup and Liverpool in the Champions League, this should not take anything away from just how dominant this City side have been.

The question that is now on everyone’s lips is whether they can do it all over again next season. On the evidence of what we have seen over the past few months, there is absolutely no reason why they cannot.

Quite simply, they have been light years ahead of their nearest title rivals, and there is little to suggest that the gap that City won the league by this season will be any smaller in 12 months.

On the evidence of their efforts over the past season, the smart money will be to bet on City to deliver back-to-back titles, and bookmakers such as Stakers will undoubtedly have them as favourites to defend the Premier League trophy and rightly so.

Critics will bemoan the fact that City spent an eye-watering amount of money in their bid to deliver this season’s Premier League, but at the same time, fans of the club will say that the ends clearly justified the means.

Arguably, City need just one or two players to join in the summer to enhance this all-star squad even further. It may even be the case that domestic dominance is all but a given and it is the European frontier where they will be aiming most of their focus.

For all City’s brilliance at home this season, there is no doubting that the club’s owners will have been disappointed by the fact that they have not made it to the Champions League final in Kyiv this month – a point further compounded by the team that knocked them out of the competition, Liverpool, being one of the two teams that will battle it out for European supremacy.

Jürgen Klopp’s side were perhaps the only side to get the better of City when it really mattered – something that Guardiola will look to make sure does not happen again when they square off during the 2018/19 season. Liverpool dealt a trio of defeats to the “Cityzens” in what were a handful of rare off days.

If anything, this showed that at least this team is human, though at times you would think otherwise due to the incredible performances they have served up as of late. If they can play at the same level next season, more trophies will certainly not be far away.

 

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