Manchester City

Manchester City are the machine that broke English football, and whether you admire them or resent them depends entirely on how you feel about perfection purchased at industrial scale. Six Premier League titles in seven seasons under Pep Guardiola, including an unprecedented four consecutive championships, plus a 2022-23 Treble that no English club besides Manchester United in 1998-99 had ever managed. City did not merely dominate the Premier League — they colonised it, strip-mining the joy from every title race until the only suspense left was the margin of victory. Based at the Etihad Stadium in east Manchester, they have been transformed from loveable underachievers into the most formidable club in world football.

Guardiola, who has been at the helm since 2016 and is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest managers in the history of the sport, built something that transcended football and entered the realm of art. The Catalan’s obsession with technical excellence, positional play, and tactical flexibility produced football of a quality the Premier League had never previously witnessed. The Etihad, with its 53,400 capacity, sits at the heart of a campus that rivals any sporting facility on the planet.

Manchester City’s Australian following mushroomed during the Guardiola era, drawn by football that rewarded intelligence and punished laziness. Whether that following persists through leaner times will tell you whether they were fans of the club or fans of winning.

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The 2025-26 season is the most fascinating chapter of the Guardiola era precisely because, for the first time, City look vulnerable. The squad is undergoing a generational transition that would destabilise any club, and key departures have left gaps that new arrivals are still learning to fill. This is where Guardiola’s genius will be truly tested — not in winning another title with a historically dominant squad, but in rebuilding one while the competition circles like sharks who have finally smelled blood. The Etihad expansion plans are progressing, because City’s ambition never recedes, only recalibrates. Betting against Guardiola remains a fool’s errand, but for the first time in a decade, the rest of the Premier League might actually have a chance.

VS — Chief sports columnist, australiafootball.com