In six years, it won the championship for five times and won the Premier League three times in a row for the first time. Guardiola’s Manchester City has undoubtedly ranked among the immortals-in the history of English top leagues for more than 100 years, only five teams have achieved the achievement of winning the championship three times in a row, starting with Huddersfield (1924-26) 97 years ago, followed by Arsenal (1933-35) and Liverpool (1982).
As for four consecutive championships, it has never happened, but it seems that it may become a reality after one year, or even a longer record of consecutive championships. After all, Gua’s Blue Moon has achieved great success. Even the disadvantage of falling behind by 8 points at one time can be easily recovered and won in advance, and I am afraid that the advantage will be greater and greater in the future. In this state, many people must have the same question in their hearts: Who else can stop Guardiola’s team from continuing to dominate the Premier League in the future?
Who is the most qualified not to play in the Champions League?
This season, Arsenal "almost" successfully prevented the official establishment of the Manchester City Dynasty. They were the leaders in the standings until the end of April, and only after losing the direct dialogue between the two sides did they completely fall behind. Obviously, the gunman’s drive and courage to challenge are worthy of recognition and respect, but we must also understand that this young team can rise suddenly this season, in fact, it is mixed with many accidental factors. If most of the traditional top six were not in trouble, including Manchester City, which was once slow to heat up, Arsenal, which took the lead, might not be able to occupy the highlands from the starting stage.
By next season, Arteta’s team will face an unprecedented test. After many years of returning to the Champions League, they will also lose an advantage over their competitors. In the 2021-22 season, Arsenal, which is competing for four, will not have a European mission. By 2022-23, the gunners who once competed for the championship have never been under the pressure of the Champions League. In the future, they may take care of themselves. After all, the most obvious shortcoming of the team at present is that the lineup is too small. Although the main force is strong, it can’t be rotated by playing in the league.
If Arsenal’s Premier League ranking drops next season, I believe it won’t surprise too many people. Although they will definitely strengthen in the summer, it is not easy to make the expanded team increase in strength in a blink of an eye. As a result, when discussing the "Manchester City Challenger" next season, the most popular candidate is not the new runner-up, but Liverpool, which now seems to have no hope of winning four.
Is this because the Red Army can’t play in the Champions League? This can be considered as one of the factors, but more importantly, klopp is the only man who has kept pace with Guardiola in the Premier League and defeated "Full Form Manchester City". In 2017-18, after Guashuai transformed Blue Moon into a shape and won the league championship, he was interrupted to defend his title only once in the Premier League, that is, the 2019-20 season when Liverpool won the championship. In addition, don’t forget that in 2018-19 and 2021-22, the Red Army was only one point away from Manchester City.
Of course, this season’s down and out is enough to show that klopp is facing the biggest dilemma since he landed in the Premier League. It is not easy to regain his glory, and it is even more difficult to overthrow Guardiola again. In this regard, we can only say that Liverpool still have some basic conditions. For example, although the upgrading of their lineup seems to be lagging behind, at least they have spent a lot of money. Newcomers such as Nunez and Huckabee, although they can’t reach the height of Trident for the time being, still have an upward trend and huge room for improvement.
In addition, there are still some good rumors about the reinforcement in summer. Bellingham, who has been staring for a long time, has failed, but mcallister of Brighton, Mount of Chelsea or Herafenbech of Bayern all have the chance to become a new force. Last time the league slipped, it only won the third place in the 2020-21 season. The Red Army rebounded quickly, and this time it fell even harder. I wonder if they can come up with a tougher response.
Richer people can win in the future?
In addition to the Red Army, the Red Devils are also expected to make "progress" next season, and in terms of preventing Guardiola from winning the cup, Manchester United should even be considered as the team that is expected to achieve this goal as soon as possible-in the FA Cup final on June 3, if Tenghahe’s team can win the Manchester derby, then the blue moon treble will naturally fail, regardless of whether the latter can beat Inter Milan a week later.
This sounds a bit like an "impossible task", but at least in January this year, the Red Devils reversed the blue moon with a tenacity of 2-1. Of course, if we really want to challenge our neighbors in a longer period of time, Manchester United needs a real reinvention-it is best to change to a richer and generous boss. In all fairness, Tenghahe has indeed brought many positive changes to the team, but all kinds of troubles left by years of deviation can be completely resolved without being so simple. At present, the Red Devils lineup also has obvious defects, such as the lack of a top scorer with particularly guaranteed goal data.
Manchester United need a strong summer, and it is best to win the legendary Aussie or Kane. As one of the traditional top six teams, Tottenham, where the latter is located, has some feelings of being expelled from the Premier League giants this season. After the cooperation with Kong Di, it is too late to determine the direction of candidates. In this way, they are likely to need to "start all over again" next season, and it is difficult to qualify for the discussion in the front row.
Since Newcastle are only one point away from qualifying for the Champions League next season, this "upstart" must be included in the discussion. With the endorsement of the Saudi public investment fund, whose wealth far exceeds that of the royal family in Abu Dhabi, it is not surprising that magpies can dominate the Premier League one day. With the support of Petroleum Jinyuan, the team has indeed made rapid progress. Last year, it once fought for relegation, and it is expected to be the third place this year. Just to take a step forward, the difficulty will inevitably multiply, and Newcastle’s development strategy is actually quite "slow and steady". They pay more attention to the long-term future, not just the immediate order. On such a successful day of Newcastle’s hegemony, Guashuai may not still be in Manchester City.
Finally, it seems that we can’t completely rule out Chelsea, one of the "top six". Although they are extremely chaotic this season, they have to be thankful for relegation in advance, but after all, the new boss has spent 600 million pounds to reinforce their ambitions. Therefore, there are still some British media who have an imagination of the Blue Army: What if Pochettino comes and the team is built as tall as its "buying price"?
However, some people are naysayers. For example, the website WhoScored recently posted a piece of data: Manchester City is one of Pochettino’s most unwilling opponents, with an average score of only 1.05 when leading the team against it. And against Guardiola, who is only one year older than himself, Pochettino is always half a head shorter in momentum. Under this premise, it may be very successful for the Blue Army to return to the front row to spoil the situation in the future.
