Manchester City: How Pep Guardiola’s side compare against Fergie’s Manchester United Fledglings, Wenger’s Arsenal Invincibles, Mourinho’s Chelsea
Manchester City’s Champions League hopes may have been severely dented by a heavy loss at Liverpool this week but with attention returning to the Premier League, they need not have such worries.
City host fierce local rivals Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, when a win would see them clinch the Premier League title in the most satisfying style.
European slip-ups to one side, City have been imperious domestically this season and have been champions elect for so long that the debate has been not so much whether they will win the title but more how they will compare to the great title-winning sides before them.
Earliest title win
Team effort: City have run away from the chasing pack (Source: Getty)
City are on the cusp of becoming the quickest team to clinch the title in the Premier League’s 26-year history. If they beat United they will have wrapped it up with five games to go, beating a record of four games to spare held by two of the competition’s most iconic champions. A Sir Alex Ferguson-led United that featured the Class of ‘92 in their prime and were reigning European champions set the record in the 1999-2000 season, and it was equalled four years later by Arsene Wenger’s famed Invincibles.
Points to prove
Guardiola is on the brink of winning more points in a single season than Ferguson, Wenger or Mourinho have ever managed (Source: Getty)
With 84 points, City have already racked up enough points to have won the title in a third of all Premier League seasons to date. Two years ago, Leicester City won with just 81 points while a win on Saturday would see Pep Guardiola’s men overtake the total haul amassed the last time they won the title in 2014. Between 1997 and 1999, when two United Premier League titles sandwiched Arsenal’s first, not even 80 points were required to triumph.
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The record is currently held by another of the league’s most storied teams: Chelsea’s 2004-05 vintage. Flushed with Roman Abramovich’s cash and led by a still-special Jose Mourinho, the automaton-like efficiency of a side featuring John Terry, Claude Makelele and Frank Lampard saw the Blues storm to their first Premier League title with 95 points.
Guardiola’s City need just four wins from their remaining seven games to overtake Mourinho’s record and, having failed to win in just four of 31 games so far this campaign, they are odds-on to do just that and create – to borrow a phrase from Mourinho – real football heritage.
The goals goal
Sergio Aguero celebrates against Leicester – another high-scoring game in which he personally bagged four (Source: Getty)
More difficult to overcome will be Chelsea’s record of 103 goals scored in a single season, set by Carlo Ancelotti’s squad in the 2009-10 season. Didier Drogba led the charge that year with 29 goals, while Frank Lampard, Nicolas Anelka and Florent Malouda all hit double figures too. That Chelsea team scored at a rate of 2.7 goals per game and, with 88 goals so far, City are on course to beat that. At their current rate of 2.8 goals per game, the Manchester side will finish with 108 goals. They have drawn a blank in just one game so far — a goalless draw at Crystal Palace on New Year’s Eve — but do have tricky fixtures against United this weekend and Tottenham a week later to come.
Ultimate winners
City have beaten all of the top six so far this season (Source: Getty)
City are just four wins away from taking the record for most wins set by Chelsea last season with 30. Antonio Conte’s side picked up 13 wins in a row on their way to the title but fell one short of Arsenal’s sequence of 14 – a record already smashed by this City side when they won 18 times in succession before Christmas. If two of City’s wins come in their next two games against United and Tottenham, it will see them break a new record and become the champions to have won the most points against fellow sides in the top six. The current record is 24, held by Roberto Mancini’s dramatic title winners in 2012, Mourinho’s Chelsea side and the Arsenal Invincibles. A win and a draw from their next two games would put this City side above them all.