Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Manchester City, Premier League, Pep Guardiola, Football
Alex Brotherton
Topics: Manchester City, Premier League, Pep Guardiola, Football
Five Manchester City stars made a strict demand of Pep Guardiola to prevent one defeat from derailing their season.
Man City made history on Sunday when they clinched the Premier League title, becoming the first team in English football history to win four top flight titles in succession.
A 3-1 win against West Ham on the final day saw Pep Guardiola's side beat Arsenal to the title by two points, who beat Everton 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium.
Back in December a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa saw City drop six points behind Mikel Arteta's side, but after winning the Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia in December, City went 23 weeks unbeaten.
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City will win the double if they beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final on Saturday, but there will be no treble repeat this season.
Last month the reigning European champions were knocked out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage, losing on penalties to Real Madrid.
Fatigue was really starting to get to City's stars by that point, and there were concerns that such a emotional defeat would negatively impact City's Premier League title defence.
That didn't happen, and City's leadership team played a huge part in that.
According to MailSport reporter Jack Gaughan, the five members of City's captaincy group - captain Kyle Walker plus Kevin De Bruyne, Rodri, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva - went to see Guardiola the morning after the Madrid shootout defeat.
The five stars all knew what needed to be done if they wanted to keep their title challenge on track, and it meant pushing through their limits and running on adrenaline.
The players told Guardiola not to ease up in training despite squad fatigue, insisting that if a player declared themselves fit in the last month of the season then they were available without question.
They asked Pep to 'push us to the limit'. After overcoming a blip in February, during which City won just once in six games, the captaincy group knew nobody could afford to rest up, for risk of allowing Arsenal or Liverpool to take the title off them.