Man City have proved dominance with successive Premier League titles and must now build an empire

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  • Getting to the top takes steely determination, incredible hard work and immense sacrifice. Staying there takes a lot more.

    After the events of an energy-sapping season, no one is more aware of that than Manchester City.

    Pep Guardiola’s side steamrolled the competition in the previous campaign, obliterating records along the way and apparently in fierce contest with themselves. The Spaniard laid down a marker with an emphatic first Premier League title under his belt. There can be no question though that retaining the crown has been a far greater achievement.

    The reasoning behind that has as much to do with City’s unreal consistency and single-minded focus as it does with Liverpool‘s rabid hunt for a first league title in 29 years and a first-ever in the Premier League era.

    At one stage over the winter, the Reds held a seven-point lead at the summit after the festive period handed City three defeats in four games. The meeting at the Etihad was pivotal and Guardiola’s side dug deep to inflict Liverpool’s only defeat of the season, with his players lauded in the aftermath, not for their technical brilliance or silky passing but a dogged resilience and physicality that seemed to overpower the visitors.

    That performance set the tone for City’s phenomenal run as they chased down the pretenders to the throne. There was one more blip to deal with. Newcastle beat them 2-1 but after Liverpool could only take a point at Leicester City, the champions put their heads down and never let up.

    A sensational 14-game winning streak is what eventually secured the title, outdoing Liverpool’s run of nine successive wins. To achieve back-to-back titles, City have had to be near-perfect, notching up a remarkable 198 points from a possible 228.

    “To win the title we had to win 14 games in a row,” said Guardiola after lifting the trophy at Brighton.

    “This was the toughest title in all my career, by far.”

    There was a time when Manchester United fans took their recurring success in England’s top flight for granted but in the wake of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign, the true extent of his achievements have been laid bare by campaigns since.

    United successfully defended the title six times during his tenure, and since winning three on the trot between 2006 and 2009, City have now become the first team to retain the crown – a decade later.

    This season’s triumph is their fourth in eight years but while that speaks volumes of their sustained strength in the division, an eye-opening fact was quickly doing the rounds as their accomplished group of players celebrated with the away support at Brighton – they’ve now drawn level with Sunderland with six league titles each.

    That puts things into perspective. Aston Villa (7) and Everton (9) sit above them in that regard while the distance to Arsenal (13), Liverpool (18) and United (20) is daunting. No one is suggesting Guardiola will remain in the blue half of Manchester for the next couple of decades and attempt to knock their neighbours off their perch, so to speak, but his success must be viewed as only the beginning.

    The endgame for City is to build an empire and be counted among the greatest teams in England but that is only achieved if their winning streak can stand the test of time. In doing so, they may even usurp Ferguson’s United as standard-bearers given the greater number of teams vying for supremacy in the current era.

    Winning the title is in itself a huge undertaking but it pales in comparison to building an empire. Guardiola has taken the first painstaking steps towards doing just that at City.

    But with the Citizens’ rule barely in place, it seems destined to face further threat from a Reds rebellion. How they continue to cope with such resistance will define their reign.

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