In the midst of a historic season, Manchester City has added yet another piece of silverware to its trophy cabinet.
The defending Premier League champions clinched the club’s seventh ever title with with Arsenal’s 1–0 loss to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, continuing their reign of dominance in English soccer that has sustained since manager Pep Guardiola joined in 2016.
From the time of the Spaniard’s arrival in Manchester, City has won five league titles (and finished second once), four League Cups and an FA Cup, experiencing unprecedented success in a league that was traditionally dominated by the club’s cross-town rivals, Manchester United. This year’s triumph comes after a thrilling title race in which City looked to have been unseated by upstart Arsenal for much of the season.
Guardiola’s side lost a pair of rotation players in the summer after striker Gabriel Jesus and left back Oleksandr Zinchenko left for Arsenal. But the major move of the transfer window came when City added Borussia Dortmund star Erling Haaland. The Norwegian 22-year-old promised to satisfy Guardiola’s desire for a potent goal threat to lead the attack.
But even after a scorching start in which Haaland notched two hat tricks by September, things weren’t all rosy at the Etihad. Arsenal had run out of the gate to its best start in years, and a pair of City losses before the World Cup break saw the Gunners find a surprising foothold in the race for the league title.
Arsenal spent 248 days atop the Premier League table, the most ever for a club that didn’t finish first. Mikel Arteta, a Guardiola disciple who spent three years as an assistant at City, led Arsenal to the No. 1 spot with three wins in its first three matches. By mid-March, the Gunners were eight points clear of second place and had won 22 of 28 matches.
City had not faced a challenger like this since Liverpool won its first ever Premier League title in 2020. Yet Guardiola’s side didn’t waver. Arsenal’s youth finally gave way in April. Three successive draws (two from winning positions) led up to the critical fixture against Man City at a raucous Etihad. Haaland & Co. produced the stuff of champions, sprinting out to a three-goal first-half lead that would finish as a 4–1 victory. It was the same show of veteran presence and ruthlessness at a key stretch of the season that has helped it ward off Liverpool and Manchester United in four of the previous five seasons.
Now, with another league title in hand, the chance at a truly historic season is in play. Manchester City will face United in the FA Cup final on June 10 before heading to Istanbul to play Inter Milan for the Champions League title. They are heavily favored in both matches. Should City win both trophies, it will become the first English side to win three major trophies in one season since Sir Alex Ferguson’s United did so in 1999.
For now, Guardiola and his team will bask in the glory of finishing yet another grueling Premier League season perched atop the English soccer pyramid.
