PEP GUARDIOLA SAID Manchester City’s 2018/19 Premier League success was the toughest title triumph of his illustrious career.
City came from behind to win 4-1 away to Brighton on Sunday’s final day of the season — a result that meant the reigning champions finished just a point in front of second-placed Liverpool, who won 2-0 at home to Wolves.
In most seasons, Liverpool’s tally of 97 points would have seen them crowned champions.
Guardiola, celebrating his eighth domestic championship in 10 seasons that have featured La Liga and Bundesliga titles with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, was in no doubt about Liverpool’s quality.
“We have to say congratulations to Liverpool and thank you so much — they pushed us to increase our standards,” he told Sky Sports.
“It’s incredible, 98 points, to go back-to-back. We made the standard higher last season and Liverpool helped us — to win this title we had to win 14 (league games) in a row. We couldn’t lose one point.”
The Catalan manager insisted: “It’s the toughest title we have won in all my career, by far.”
Sunday’s result meant Liverpool’s wait for a maiden Premier League title — their last domestic championship was in 1990 — goes on, although they could yet win the Champions League if they beat Tottenham Hotspur when the English rivals meet in a Madrid final on June 1.
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah, whose 22 goals this season made him a joint-winner of the Premier League’s golden boot award, said the Anfield club would challenge again next term.
“We only lost one (Premier League) game all season,” the Egypt forward said. “We gave everything. We got 97 points. We will fight next season for the title.”
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BBC – Thierry Henry, Fabregas and Alan Shearer -an absolute snooze fest
@Ronan O Connor: Fr. Stone had also been lined up for the knockout stages!
@T Dawg: Fr Stone. Blast from the past. Lol.
Can’t wait for Roy Keane to sow it into England after they go out in the quarter finals
@Eoin Fitzgerald: i preferred it the first 5 times he did it. His rants can be funny but he’s poor pundit in my opinion, Little tactical insight, overly negative and its obvious he doesn’t do much research. On the flipside Neville’s forensic analysis of everything to the enth degree can get a bit old too. There’s a great interview with Brian Clough about pundits from the 80′s and robbing people of their ability to form their own insights and opinions about the game. I’m beginning to agree with him more and more as time goes on. Most of them are at best boring, at worst infuriating, and very few justify not going out to make the tae at half time.
@Fred spins kdb: I get the impression that there is no such thing a good pundit for you. If they’re analytic that’s not good. If they speak their mind, that’s not good either. I must say I like roy Keane as a pundit. I actually enjoy listening to what he has to say. Speaks the truth whether people like it or not.
@Eoin Fitzgerald: maybe you are right. I think Carragher is good.Neville is way too preachy and believing of his own hype these days for me. I get the sense he believes he is the man who single handedly took down to the super league, as if working for sky sports is no way connected to gouging money from the everyday football fan. I think Roy can be a good listen to at times, but he doesn’t have much to offer in terms of genuine insight, he kind of lost me with his ‘everyone who can trap the ball is an international these days’. Tearing the back off players becomes kind of less edgy and more boring and predictable if you are doing it all time.
@Eoin Fitzgerald: think Brian Kerr is good aswell. Unreal knowledge and engaging speaker.
I’m guessing RTE still has all the euro games yeah?? Even though we didn’t qualify
@Aidan: Yeah they do with Richie Sadlier, Kevin Doyle and Damien Duff.
@Eoin Fitzgerald: what a bore ! ITV for me
@Gary O: RTE panel hasn’t been the same since Liam, Johnny and Dunphy left (Didi too, hopefully he can back after pandemic)
@Eoin Fitzgerald: agreed 100%