Many will say that Manchester City’s first emphatic Premier League title is testament to Pep Guardiola and his methods, though those on the inside of the club through 10 years of Abu Dhabi ownership had a very different perspective on Monday night.
The bumpy road to becoming the Premier League’s unrivalled team — it was little less than torture during some of the early Abu Dhabi years, when no player with a global pedigree was remotely interested in joining the club — would have been beyond Guardiola’s wildest imagination.
‘People forget that 10 years ago it was unthinkable that City would get to this place,’ one former senior executive said.