Man City's latest title triumph means more than ever - Pep Guardiola has achieved what Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho couldn't, writes OLIVER HOLT When you’re in the stadium you HAVE to support your own players - Listen to the It's All Kicking Off! podcast By Oliver Holt Published: 18:57 BST, 19 May 2024 | Updated: 21:21 BST, 19 May 2024 e-mail 89 shares 18 View comments What they saw was something that had been foretold. What they saw was a confirmation of a promise that had been made to them. When Pep Guardiola took over as City manager in July 2016, people who knew his work at Barcelona and Bayern Munich , who understood that those teams’ successes were as much about him as Lionel Messi and Thomas Muller , predicted that Guardiola would change English football.
They predicted that he would be the last, and most powerful, piece in the jigsaw of excellence that City’s Abu Dhabi owners were putting together in the east of Manchester and that he would usher in a period of dominance that would rival any seen in our game. Some laughed at that initially, when Guardiola failed to win a trophy in his first season. They said his methods would not translate to the rough and tumble of the Premier League .
They said Guardiola would have to change. But those people stopped laughing a long time ago. And when referee John Brooks blew the final whistle just before 6pm on Sunday evening, and the scoreboard showed a blue moon rising and a sea of supporters in blue s.
