When Pep Guardiola won his first Premier League game in August, 2016 - a 2-1 win over Sunderland, thanks to a late Paddy McNair own goal - there were two hopes of him staying at Manchester City for almost six years: slim and none.
It would be three years, tops. Too intense, Pep. That is why he had a sabbatical after leaving Barcelona. Yet here he is in 2022, beer and cigars to hand, celebrating a fourth Premier League success in half a dozen points-drenched, goal-heavy seasons.
It is not just this particular title - won in the most thrilling fashion - we should be saluting; it is the consistent brilliance of the City team he has developed and redeveloped, and his slavish devotion to a philosophy about how the game should be played. Very few managers have been given the sort of resources Guardiola has enjoyed. Make no mistake, that makes it a hell of a lot of easier to put your principles into action.
