As Manchester City gear up to enjoy another season taking on the Premier League and Europe’s top competition, many neutrals will be wondering whether or not the club should put its focus on the Champions League rather than their domestic tournament.
Whilst it is possible that Pep Guardiola will decide to stick around for even longer than the one more season he is contracted for, the likelihood is that he will walk away next summer and a solitary Champions League win might not be seen as good enough for a club that has every advantage going for it. Is a fifth league in a row good enough for the Cityzens?
Premier League Charges Could Drop
The elephant in the room when it comes to Manchester City are the 115 charges of alleged rule breaches of the top-flights financial regulations. Pundits and commentators studiously choose to ignore them whenever discussing how brilliant Pep Guardiola’s side is, whilst opposition supporters use them to undermine everything that the Abu Dhabi-owned club has achieved since the takeover.
The good news for all parties is that the hearing into the breaches is due to start in September and last for around ten weeks, meaning that the verdict will be due at the start of 2025. In other words, there’s a world in which the club is deducted points before the season is even over.
🚨 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: The hearing into Manchester City’s 115 FFP charges is set to begin in September with a verdict expected in early 2025.
🗞️ @martynziegler pic.twitter.com/yPJL0v17m3
— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) August 12, 2024
Whilst City’s squad is full of brilliantly talented players, it isn’t necessarily all that deep and one or two injuries could result in the club struggling to tackle both the Premier League and the Champions League at the same time.
There might come a point at which Pep Guardiola has to make a decision about which competition to focus on and it might not be the wisest choice to go for a top-flight title that might either be taken away from them if they win it or else be made impossible to win due to a large points deduction. It is unlikely that anyone is going to want to see City be on the verge of a record-extending fifth title only to be deducted, say, 50 points.
Champions Leagues are Hard to Win
Liverpool are the most successful club in the United Kingdom when it comes to Champions Leagues/European Cup wins, having seen the trophy placed into the Anfield trophy cabinet six times over the years. Although four of those victories came during the 1970s and 1980s when the club was at its dominant best, there is an argument that the Merseyside club has a special relationship with European football and Anfield comes alive when teams from the continent are visiting.
Other sides have struggled to win the Champions League even though they’ve dominated the Premier League, with Manchester United being a case in point.
It isn’t easy to win the premier competition in European football, given that you have to take on the best of the rest to get there. From the likes of Real Madrid, who essentially own the European Cup and loan it to other clubs every now and then, through to teams such as Bayern Munich and Barcelona, the top sides from Spain, Italy, Portugal and others are there to try to stop you.
It is why Guardiola struggled to win it whilst winning the Bundesliga year-in, year-out at Bayern, to say nothing of why he was brought in to win it at City in the first place. Winning it is tough, winning it alongside a league title is almost impossible for most sides.
They Already Have the Record for League Wins
Last season, Manchester City won the Premier League for the fourth time in succession. It was the first time that the English top-flight had ever been won four times in a row by the same team, with three back-to-back having been the previous record.
It means that the record is likely to be theirs for a long time to come, so winning it for a fifth time won’t really do much to change that. It is difficult to see how any side could go on to win it four times, given the fact that City managed it with all of the various advantages of being owned by a nation state and still got lucky with winning it instead of Liverpool one year and Arsenal another.
@premierleague🏆 Unparalleled 🏆 Unprecedented 🏆 Unsurpassed 🏆 Man City are the first side in English football history to win four consecutive top-flight titles.♬ original sound – Premier League
Is there any real reason why Guardiola would want to focus on the Premier League over the Champions League? It is certainly the case that winning in Europe comes with a lot more prestige than winning the domestic title, so the Spaniard will almost certainly look to extend his record in that competition.
At the moment, Guardiola only has three Champions League wins to his name and just one with City, which has to be seen as a disappointment when managing one of the richest clubs on the planet. We know he can dominate domestically, but being able to win on the biggest stage of all would cement his place in an all-time greatest list; 115 charges notwithstanding.
The Champions League is Why he Got the City Job
Ultimately, Manchester City were always likely to be in and around the conversation about the Premier League title. When you’re one of the richest clubs on the planet and can spend money like it is going out of fashion, you’re going to pick up more than a few Premier Leagues along the way.
They won it with Manuel Pellegrini and Roberto Mancini, so it is clear that Guardiola isn’t the crucial factor in taking the top-flight title to the Etihad. When he was given the job by Sheikh Mansour and the City Football Group, he will have been given a clear job of bringing the European Cup to the club as many times as he possibly could.
Of Guardiola’s 11 Champions League eliminations, EIGHT have seen decisive periods that were sudden collapses/flurries of goals conceded
2010 – 2 in 13 minutes
2014 – 3 in 18
2015 – 3 in 17
2017 – 2 in 8
2018- 3 in 19
2019- 2 in 3
2020- 2 in 8
2022- 3 in 6— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) May 4, 2022
Although they made it to the final in the 2020-2021 season, they were beaten by a Chelsea side that finished 19 points behind them in the Premier League. That will have been a major disappointment to all concerned, to say nothing of the fact that the club has had just two final appearances during Guardiola’s time at the Etihad.
If he is to please his paymasters then it is not unreasonable to surmise that he will need to add one more Champions League trophy to the cabinet before he rides off into the sunset. Although supporters of other clubs won’t have any respect for his achievements, it’s clear that the club’s fans and owners very much will.
