The Manchester City fanbase like it to be known that they’re “not really here”. But as the club stand on the verge of history, it is a line from Pep Guardiola which offers the clarity, the explanation; a sense of wonder, too.
“We are there,” City’s manager has said repeatedly over the course of this season and those that have gone before. His team are pushing yet again to secure the Premier League title and he has often posited that the very act of being there and competing, the sheer consistency, is the real measure of them, the thing that must be celebrated.
