One more time, without feeling. The sun rose on Sunday morning, the Earth completed a full rotation on its axis and Manchester City won the Premier League title, just as they did in 2012 and 2014, and 2018 and 2019, and 2021, 2022 and 2023. Another trophy in the glass case another silhouette to add to the mural. The greatest saga in English football has been turned into ecclesiastical liturgy, its rhythms hardened into routine, and here Arsenal were simply the latest team to succumb to the myth that there was ever a race to be won.
Related: Manchester City defeated West Ham to win their fourth Premier League title in a row
For City, of course, there is now a glorious familiarity with these rituals, a muscle memory in the trophy-bearing limbs, the arms that lift him and the legs that earn him. Of course there is the full-scale invasion, which proceeds in disregard of the many big screen warnings forbidding it, because it has now become something of a tradition. There are City fans in the lower North Stand who can boast more appearances on the Etihad Stadium pitch than Kalvin Phillips.
Finally everyone gets tired of walking around on the grass and retreats over the billboards. The stages are assembled and carpets are laid on the field. Expectant, beaming families gather in the tunnel. Pep Guardiola makes his bow, wearing a new garment that will later be available for sale in the club shop for a three-figure sum. Then the moment itself, ticker tape and pyrotechnics, a big but not overwhelming roar of approval. And then it’s all over: back home to begin the excruciating twelve-month countdown until City can win the Premier League again.
The problem, of course, is that at some point in Guardiola’s supremacy, City simply became too good for their own good. Too good, not just for their competitors, but for the competition, for the product and the people whose job it is to sell it. City claimed the title by winning their last nine games in a row, but even this only tells a fraction of the story. All those matches were won by two or more goals, with the average time of the first goal being 17 minutes. Here Phil Foden beat them 1-0 within two minutes. We are Manchester City. Nice to meet you. Game is over.
None of this, we must emphasize, is solely City’s fault. We can talk about the money, we can talk about the 115 charges related to alleged financial improprieties, we can talk about human rights in the United Arab Emirates. But if it hadn’t been City then, it would have been someone else later. The point is that greed and bad intentions have always entered the sport through every hole. It is the nature of sports franchises to desire dominance by any means necessary, and sports companies to desire security at any cost. And so it is the sacred duty of regulators and governing bodies to prevent them in advance, to build the structures that correct the distortions and imbalances before they materialize.
Related: Pep Guardiola admits he is ‘closer to leaving than staying’ at Manchester City
Instead, the Premier League turned a blind eye to the immeasurable autocrat wealth, cashed the cheques, bathed in the reflected glory, gripped above all by a belief in the intrinsic virtue of its product, a belief that competitive balance would happen on its own, simply in his power was gone. essential nature. The result – years later – is another Manchester City title that only Manchester City really cares about, and even they seem to be heading in the right direction at times.
The mood before kick-off was one of joviality rather than danger, with the city faithful gathering not in hope but in anticipation. Emotionally, the hard work was done at Tottenham on Tuesday. This was the fun part. Songs and banners. Children playing football on the field. On the sidelines, Noel Gallagher muttered something into a microphone, and everyone was relieved it wasn’t a new album.
Eventually the game started, although even as Foden scored the opening goal you got the feeling that West Ham had yet to get the message. This is, after all, a club that has spent the last few weeks floating around as a kind of ghost entity, a largely disembodied sporting experience, essentially indistinguishable from a sheet of paper in a filing cabinet with the words ‘West Ham’ written on it. It.
David Moyes said last week that his side would struggle to stop City’s under-14 side, and everyone wrongly assumed it was a joke. Foden scored again. Jérémy Doku scored from twenty meters. Rodri shot wide. In between, West Ham simply gave them the ball back so they could try again.
Ironically, it was City transfer goalkeeper Lucas Paquetá who made the mistake for Foden’s first goal. It was probably a strange afternoon for Paquetá, playing against a team that one would assume he would want to be a part of. This is, of course, also one of City’s strengths: a preternatural ability to pick up the very best and most sought-after mid-range talent – John Stones, Nathan Aké, Jack Grealish, Matheus Nunes – and find them a gilded place in the Etihad Stadium bench.
Mohammed Kudus’ spectacular bicycle kick shortly before half-time silenced the noise in the Etihad Stadium, as if a terrible social misstep had been committed. Rodri’s goal on the hour mark got the party going again. The VIPs on the cushioned chairs began to dance the Poznan, their gold strings bobbing up and down.
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The temptation is to see this as some kind of climax. Four titles in a row, a feat never before achieved, the kind of football never before seen on these shores. But hey, no one has ever done five or six in a row. Guardiola is still the best coach in the world. Erling Haaland is still the best striker. The backroom operation is still a subject that is the envy of world football. Oil revenues are still flowing. The winning routines are grooved and drilled. We’ll see you all back here in twelve months.