What do you get when you combine the best player in the Premier League with the best manager in the Premier League? Trouble for the rest of the Premier League.
Manchester City are already threatening to end another title race before it had really got going with their unrivalled commitment to excellence. Pep Guardiola and his squad have raised their performance levels over the last six weeks at the same time as Chelsea and Liverpool have stumbled, resulting in a double-digit lead at the top of the table that has brought more soul-searching about how competitive the league really is.
The good news for other clubs is that City cannot always be this good. They are where they are through years of making terrific decisions, spending a lot of money but using it more wisely than most others; ask anyone who moans about City having the most valuable squad why the club faced no English competition for Kevin De Bruyne, or Bernardo Silva, or countless others.
