Manchester City's Premier League campaign was perhaps defined by their most recent match, a 5-0 mauling of relegation-fighters Swansea City.
Game was played at ease by the team that were crowned champions last weekend and it showed: the goals were shared among of the leading stars in City's season, some in the usual whiff of slick played-on-the-floor Guardiolaism, some 25-yard rockets into the top corner.
Advert
The game was played out with attention on the goal-scoring prowess of Pep Guardiola's men. Despite winning the league already this season, the onus for them and their admirers has now switched to breaking the record for scoring the most goals in a Premier League campaign.
Advert
Perhaps inadvertently, as City went in search of breaking this record against the Welsh opposition, another record was broken: OptaJoe tweeted that the Citizens have broken the record of the most attempted passes in a Premier League game.
Advert
What's more remarkable about this achievement -- an achievement which, in fairness, you might've thought the Sky Blues had broken this already this season, such is their dominance- was that it last achieved in the 2003/04 seaso: the same period where Arsene Wenger's men ran riot on the league in similar fashion and the club earned the nickname ' The Invincibles'.
In a way it's poignant that as Wenger makes his final bow to the audience, having left a legacy which had reinvented how elite level English football is played, Guardiola has come into the fold with his version 2:0 blueprint.
Advert
Both men envision football played through aesthetically pleasing patterns, not purely pragmatism, hoofed balls and 'mixers', but it must be understood that without the one we wouldn't' have the other. What's good for us, too, is that it can only get better than this.
,
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football News, Football, Guardiola, Man City
