Aadi's Sports Corner

The ongoing Premier League season was drawn to an end with the final match day being played on 28^th May, 2023.

And once again it was the season of Manchester City and Pep Guardiola, who won the coveted trophy for a 5^th time in the last 6 years. Unreal achievement for Pep and his boys. Overall, this was City’s 7^th Premier League title after being taken over by Sheikh Mansour in 2008.

City had a decent, yet spectacular transfer window prior to the season. Signing of Erling Haaland proved to be masterstroke as the Norwegian cyborg ended up scoring 36 goals, which is the highest in any premier league season. Overall his tally stands at 52 goals for the season. A dream debut season for the young lad which some players can only imagine of.

Stefan Ortega Moreno proved to be a safe backup goalkeeper after the departure of Zack Steffen. Manuel Akanji, the new right-back, made his way into Guardiola’s starting line up by replacing Joao Cancelo who was loaned to Bayern Munich in the winter transfer window. Kalvin Phillips could not show his worth as he hardly featured in a few matches. Hopefully he can receive extra game time next season.

On the other hand, City also let go off a number of star players too. Club captain Fernandinho left the club after his illustrious career with them. Gabriel Jesus left for London club Arsenal and Raheem Sterling left to try his fortunes at Chelsea.

City started off the season with a great victory over West Ham. Haaland stepping up on the Premier League stage for the first time, set the competition on fire with a brace.

A string of draws and a loss followed as City were placed on 2^nd position in the points table behind league leaders Arsenal.

Despite being second, Haaland continued his golden touch, scoring back to back hat-tricks. The biggest highlight of the first half of Man City’s season was the 6-3 thrashing of local rivals Manchester United at the Etihad. Haaland and Phil Foden scored superb hat-tricks to give city an iconic victory for the ages.

Many people questioned if City could keep up with Arsenal after the World Cup break and City did not disappoint. They kept up the pace with Arsenal and were just 5 points behind them by March.

Arsenal started losing key matches and dropping points and Pep and his boys grabbed this opportunity to go ahead of Arsenal. They defeated Klopp’s Liverpool 4-1 on their way to face Arsenal. City hammered Arsenal 4-1 to go ahead of them in the table with a game in hand.

Arsenal’s defeat to Brighton, handed City the title on 14^th May, 2023 with 3 matches left. City lifted the trophy in front of their home fans on 21^st May after their win over Chelsea.

Kevin De Bruyne once again proved to be the key player for City recording 7 goals and 16 assists. His assists tally is the highest for this season.

Ilkay Gundogan scored important braces towards the end to guide City to their title.

Julian Alvarez, the back up striker caught everyone’s attention as he stepped out of Haaland’s shadow to score 9 goals which is truly good for a back up striker.

Jack Grealish, who was considered a major waste after a disastrous debut last season, made an impressive mark this time around with the number of chances he created and the assists he recorded.

Ederson too continued his impressive Manchester City time with some great performances. Ruben Dias the centre-back was once again rock solid throughout the season. John Stones, took up a new role as a midfielder and Kyle Walker impressed fans with his speed and agility at the back.

Rodri made major improvements coming to this season and Bernardo Silva is a gem to this great Manchester City team.

The credit for all of this goes to the main man, Pep Guardiola who led from front and took crucial decisions for the side. He won his record 11^th league title and became the first manager ever to complete a league 3-peat in Spain, Germany and England. Man City also became the second team after Manchester United to complete a league triple in England.

Haaland ended the season as their top scorer and received the golden boot award for the same. He even received the young player and PFA footballer of the year award.

This was City’s most successful season till now, but the extent of their success will depend on how they perform in the last 2 games- The FA Cup Final against Manchester United and the elusive Champions League Final against Inter Milan.

Let’s see what’s in store for City in the coming weeks…..