Let’s get this out of the way straight away: we’re not talking about which team served up the most entertaining matches or whose style of football is the easiest on the eye. We’ll leave that to every man, woman and child to decide for themselves. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. What we’ll try to elaborate on here are the facts alone. And the facts work in Manchester City’s favour. In a word, the sky blues from Manchester have been the best team in 2021.At the end of 2020, Pep Guardiola’s side was sitting in the eighth position of the Premier League standings, albeit with two games in hand. From that point, they put together a fantastic run of 13 wins in a row to climb the table while all the other contenders spilled points along the way. As you know, they were crowned champions of England. Has Pep Guardiola wrapped up yet another Premier League title? pic.twitter.com/afSap72ENK— TalkFCB © (@talkfcb_) January 2, 2022 Even though they had to say goodbye to their best goalscorer in the past decade, Sergio Aguero, and seemingly not signing a replacement, City added another magician to their ranks in Jack Grealish. Guardiola has had to change his approach by fielding a team that hasn’t got an out-and-out striker leading the line, but the wide spectre of skills and a world-class squad allowed the former Barcelona and Bayern tactician to deploy his wingers and false nines in various roles that kept the opponents on the back foot all year. In the game where results are valued much more than flair or the talent to create by improvising, Guardiola has gotten the results and made a few haters shut up.Grealish admits life in the City is much more difficult than expectedIt would be almost scary to think how good this team would be if they succeeded in their attempts to sign Tottenham Hotspur captain Harry Kane after the European Championship. As another transfer window opens, it will be intriguing to see if the club will try to spend a few tens of millions of dollars on a striker.With Covid, injuries and calendar changes disrupting the competition, Manchester City ended the year with the most Premier League fixtures – 44. No other team has been involved in more than 42 games. In those 44 matches, City won 36 of those while losing just six. It means that the champions have been taking 2.5 points per league game on average. If you play an entire Premier League season on that level, you’d finish with a total of 95 points – enough to win the title in any season.It will take something special to catch them before the season’s up.##EDITORS_CHOICE##On the individual level, the Citizens have also been more than impressive. Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Ilkay Gundogan and Phil Foden are playing the best football of their careers so far and most of them could still improve. The team kept plugging away even without some of the most influential players, which is a testament to Guardiola and his staff. Captain Kevin De Bruyne has played in only 26 of those 44 games, Foden also missed 13 games, but there was always someone to step up and be counted.11 – Manchester City are the first English side to win 11 games in a single European Cup/Champions League campaign. Dominance. https://t.co/pdJHlXxPyc— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) May 4, 2021 It would be easy to just praise Guardiola’s team for their skill, ability to hold onto the ball all day, giving chances to young players regularly or scoring ridiculous goals without even having a centre forward in their ranks. But not everything was perfect.Champions League trophy does not guarantee profit – Chelsea are 200 million USD underLosing the Champions League final to Chelsea is still a thorn in Guardiola’s side. The Spaniard is starting to get restless because the biggest trophy in Europe proved elusive since he’d left Barcelona. His main goal at Bayern was to win it and he failed. At City, one of his objects is to induct the sky blues into the crème de la crème of Europe by winning the prestigious title. He’s yet to do it – and there’s no doubt that it will be his biggest desire of 2022. Sure enough, City finished top of their group with some ease. They will face Sporting Clube de Portugal in the round of 16 in mid-February in what promises to be an exciting race for the coveted prize.Welcome to 2022, another year in which Manchester City will be the team to beat.
