Manchester City holds onto English Premier League title on final day

Manchester City won its second Premier League trophy, in what was an exciting race to the finish, after finishing ahead of Liverpool by one point.

Pep Guardiola, head coach for Manchester City knows the feeling well and understands the feeling of having a medal hung around your neck as you are crowned champions. For Guardiola, it was his eighth champion as a coach. Commenting on that success and winning the title, Guardiola said,

“Winning the title gives you a lot of energy and is so addictive.”

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Man City knows the feeling of winning well and has almost routine after being purchased by Sheikh Mansour, who quickly invested in the team. Prior to his ownership, Man City had only won two championships in its almost 140 year history, on Sunday, it was their second Premier League title in two years.

A club that was once run over by Man United is now the top team in England after winning four titles in the last eight years. They finished first in 2012, 2014, 2018 and now, they can add 2019 to that record.

A big part of that success comes on the heels of Guardiola, who as a player won eight titles while playing for Barcelona, and scored hat trick titles as a coach at Bayern Munich and Barcelona. On his coaching style, Guardiola said,

“I push my staff, and I push myself.”

Guardiola sets the standard that forced others to follow in kind. That was evident when Man City was behind seven points last December only to go on and score victories in their next fourteen games finishing the season with 98 points, the second-highest total in the last 100 years. Liverpool was hoping for its first championship in almost 30 years but failed in its big. Commenting on Liverpool’s efforts and season success, Vincent Kompany, captain of Man City said,

“Liverpool was exceptional, I don’t mean to rub it in, it is what it is, they didn’t deserve to lose. It makes me so much more happy that we played such a great team all season.”

Liverpool fans had high hopes during the first half when Sadio Mané scored at the 17th minute mark. It was the first time Man City failed to lead a game since January. Sergio Agüero managed to tie the match less than a minute and a half later, but it wasn’t until the 38th minute before City went up by one after Aymeric Laporte put a header between the posts.

The second half saw Man City’s Mahrez score in the 63rd minute, his first with the club since being signed for 60 million pounds in July. City managed to add one at the 72nd minute mark when Ilkay Gündogan scored a free kick. Commenting on their game plan, Vincent Kompany said,

” We were creating chances, finding the gaps, imposing ourselves. Though the pitch was slow I felt we were magnificent. We did everything we needed to do in a game such as today.”

While Man City were enjoying the celebrations, it will be short lived as they focus and prepare for next week’s FA Cup final on Saturday in Waterford. If successful, they will have won both the League Cup and FA Cup, a feat few others can lay claim to.