Signing Erling Haaland, the Tottenham comeback and watching Arsenal implode: Ten moments that won Man City another Premier League title

Signing Erling Haaland, the Tottenham comeback and watching Arsenal implode: Ten moments that won Man City another Premier League title - AD Reporters

Manchester City are Premier League champions again. For the first time in the club's history, they have won the title for a third consecutive season. And this will go down as one of their most memorable triumphs of all.

Even though Pep Guardiola's side clinched the title with three games to spare, it has been far from easy. They have been pushed practically all the way by Arsenal, who no one would have taken seriously as a title rival at the start of the season.

And let's not forget that Mikel Arteta's side enjoyed an eight-point lead over City in mid-January. But thanks to an incredible team spirit and the indomitable presence of Guardiola, who never let his team relax, the Cityzens reeled the Gunners in with a remarkable resurgence in form, helped by beating their title rivals twice.

You could say that City won the league on June 13, 2022, the day they officially signed Erling Haaland. It was an open secret that the Norwegian was going to join City, where his father Alfie had also played, and the striker was introduced to fans on stage outside the Etihad Stadium on a scorching July day.
"I'm sure we're going to have a good time together," he told the adoring crowd. "When I have fun I score goals, I win games."
Having just pipped Liverpool to last season's title without having a traditional striker and with Kevin De Bruyne as their top scorer, City had just signed a player who had scored 49 goals in his last two seasons in the Bundesliga. But Haaland has been far more prolific in England, breaking every goalscoring record imaginable.
With a goal monster like Haaland complementing an already formidable team, no one else really stood a chance.
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Derby-day thrashing
Every title contender needs to lay down an early marker, and City did that in the first Manchester derby of the season, mauling Manchester United 6-3. The derby was the match Haaland said he was most looking forward to when he was presented, and he did not disappoint, scoring a hat-trick and setting up two goals for Phil Foden, who also completed a treble on a dream afternoon for City against their biggest rivals.
United fans could not stomach what they were witnessing and many of them left the Etihad Stadium early, leaving the away end looking bare. For City, it was the first of many big wins of the season against a top side and fired out a warning to the rest of the league.
- City had an unhappy start to 2023, drawing 1-1 at home to struggling Everton on New Year's Eve then being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton before controversially losing 2-1 to Manchester United at Old Trafford.
  They then faced Tottenham while trailing Arsenal by eight points, and conceded two goals out of nowhere to fall 2-0 down at half-time, leading to the fans booing their team off the pitch. Guardiola was utterly livid, but managed to inspire a brutal second-half comeback as City ended up crushing Spurs 4-2 with goals from Julian Alvarez, Haaland and Riyad Mahrez.
  But what took place after the match was arguably more important. Guardiola let rip at his players, the club's staff and the fans, bizarrely referring to them as a "happy flowers team" in reference to them being too complacent. The tirade looked like a possible sign that the Catalan was losing the plot, but he was actually looking for a reaction from his players. He sure got it. Since that day, City have dropped just five more points.
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  Getting rid of Cancelo
  Jaws dropped in the football world when news filtered out in late January that City were going to offload Joao Cancelo to Bayern Munich on loan. The Portuguese left-back had been one of City's best players in the previous two seasons and had made an impressive start to this campaign.
  But he was not adapting well to Guardiola's change of system to accommodate Haaland and had lost his place in the team to Nathan Ake. Cancelo had not taken his fall from grace well, and rather than let a bad apple rot the rest of the team, Guardiola cut him loose and sent him to Bayern, effectively strengthening a European rival who his side would end up facing in the Champions League.
  But this was a show of strength from Guardiola himself, a demonstration that he was boss and no one could question his decisions. And City have looked like a far more cohesive unit since Cancelo's departure, with Ake and Manuel Akanji playing the role of inverted left-back to perfection.