da betcris： The treble-winners will struggle to match the incredible heights they scaled last season and retaining their domestic crown will be very difficult
da bet vitoria： In 134 years of English football, no team has ever won four league titles in a row. Huddersfield Town, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United (twice) have all attempted the feat, but ultimately fallen short. Now, it is Manchester City's turn to try and boldly go where no team has gone before.
If any manager was to go and do it, then it would be Pep Guardiola, who led his side to the treble just two months ago and has a habit of setting new precedents. The Catalan became only the second coach to lead Barcelona to three consecutive La Liga crowns and no-one has done it since, for any club. He was the first Bayern Munich coach in 29 years to lift three Bundesliga titles in a row. He was the first coach to win the treble in Spanish football and only the second to do so in English football.
But while Guardiola has an insatiable lust for winning, getting his players to remain as hungry after lifting every trophy imaginable is another matter. Sir Alex Ferguson and Vicente del Bosque are just two managers who have warned how hard it is to get a winning team to keep on winning. And while City have lost two crucial members of this golden era after parting with captain Ilkay Gundogan and the ever-reliable Riyad Mahrez, their rivals have strengthened.
Arsenal, their closest rivals last season, have spent over £200 million ($254m) to boost their title hopes and Manchester United have been on a programme of targeted recruitment over the summer, splashing out around £165m ($210m) to get a new striker, midfielder and goalkeeper. Chelsea have a new manager and have continued to regenerate their squad, while Liverpool have also got their wallet out after underwhelming in 2022-23.
Even though Guardiola had craved the Champions League for 12 years, he has described the Premier League title as "the most important" competition of all. Winning it for a fourth year in a row might be his biggest challenge yet, but it will be one he will relish pulling off.
GettyRealistic expectations
Even though no team has done it before, only a fool would bet heavily against City winning yet another league title. They still have the strongest all-round squad in the league, with a bench as good as many team's starting XI. Just look at the fact that Julian Alvarez, the first-choice striker of World Cup winners Argentina, started only a third of their league matches last season.
In Erling Haaland they have the most prolific striker the Premier League has ever seen, supplied by one of the greatest playmakers in league history in Kevin De Bruyne. They also had the joint-best defence in the league last year, which has just been bolstered by the signing of Croatia defender Josko Gvardiol.
City are odds-on favourites to retain the title, and although they normally experience hiccups early in a campaign, they can be relied upon to click into gear at the business end of the season. Guardiola's side are also favourites to win the Champions League again, and after they steamrolled European aristocrats Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, it is difficult to disagree with the bookmakers. However, both Real and Bayern have strengthened, while Paris Saint-Germain should be contenders again under Luis Enrique despite uncertainty surrounding their biggest names.
The unpredictable nature of knockout football and the fact only one team (Real Madrid) has retained the title in the Champions League era shows how hard it is to win again, so a successive European triumph will be far from easy.
It seems unlikely that City will win the treble again though, as the FA Cup is the competition where Guardiola rotates his side most often and mishaps, such as the Carabao Cup defeat to Southampton, can always occur.
AdvertisementGettyBest-case scenario
How do you follow winning the treble? By winning the quadruple, naturally. City have a deep enough squad to retain the three trophies they won last year and have an excellent record in the Carabao Cup, with four consecutive triumphs between 2018 and 2021.
The Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Champions League are all subject to plenty of jeopardy, and, as City found out in the Community Shield against Arsenal, taking your foot off the gas for just one minute can leave you without silverware.
But City have already won the treble and in 2019 completed a domestic treble. They are certainly capable of a true clean sweep, and although it would be the greatest achievement of any English side, it cannot be ruled out.
Getty Worst-case scenario
Guardiola has only had one trophy-less season in his 15 seasons as a manager, and that was his first campaign with City, when he was adapting to a new league and renovating a squad that had become jaded under Manuel Pellegrini.
Ending this season without any silverware would be a disaster and seems highly unlikely. The worst case scenario would be a failure to win one of the Champions League or Premier League title. Lifting the Carabao or FA Cup would soften the blow, but would still not mask a disappointing campaign after the incredible heights of 2022-23.
GettyThe MVP
City's squad is so well rounded and at various stages of last season different individuals stepped forward and made the case for being the team's key player. Rodri played almost every game and held the team together throughout the season. And he scored the breakthrough goal in the Champions League final. John Stones reinvented himself as the 'Barnsley Beckenbauer' and became one of the first names on Guardiola's team sheet. De Bruyne contributed 31 assists and 10 goals. Jack Grealish was moulded into just the player Guardiola wanted him to be while Nathan Ake looked like one of the best defenders in the world.
But no player had the impact of Erling Haaland. The Norwegian defied expectations that he would need some time to adapt to the Premier League and ended the campaign with a record 36 goals, and from just 35 appearances. In all competitions, he scored 51 times in 52 games. He will be the player to watch again this season and he will be hungry to break his own records.