Manchester City’s title win
The whole season, with Arsenal spending most of the season on top, and we were predicting who could catch them certainly when they went eight points clear. The fact that they got to just after the World Cup and you felt that there were problems at Manchester City there was a little bit of a dysfunction around Haaland and how he fits in the system; although he was scoring goals, they weren’t a great watch. They were quite boring at time, which was unlike them, especially after last season when they played and dominated games and how expansive they were at times. Then all of a sudden, I think, Pep called them out, I think Cancelo was a problem in the dressing room, he called him out and got him out of the club. I think they had a sit-down and talking to and things started to change, he then started to play with an inverted full-back, Rico Lewis and John Stones taking it in turns playing in midfield, which tactically made them better defensively. In the first 15-16 games when they were leaking goals they just found this way of playing, well actually, they found two or three ways of playing against different opposition and started blowing teams apart. Some results might have played a key role in pushing them even further. After the win against Arsenal that was it, the psychological battle was won and it was only about how many points are they going clear from Arsenal and anyone else.
Player of the year
Erling Haaland could make history and win the young player of the year and player of the year which would make him only the third-ever player to achieve it. I am not so sure that it will happen, Andy Gray is one of the people that has actually done it. I think Haaland will pick up the honour of player of the season after scoring 52 goals up to now and on the brink of winning a treble in his first season. As I said, it has been a difficult season for him and the rest of the players, I think adapting to his methods has been a major factor for their success this season. He has done it emphatically and I know most of his goals has come from inside the box I think later on in the season, he added more to his game, his link-up improved, creating goals for other players, and he has just been absolutely phenomenal. Not many defenders have enjoyed playing against him or even had the better of him. Strikers in the Premier League can get found out as they progress, I remember Michael Owen burst onto the scene scoring lots of goals, the centre-halfs just couldn’t mark him and as time went by teams dropped deeper and gave him less space to run in behind and his powers didn’t wain but he was found out a little bit. I am not so sure they can do that with Haaland, he’s got every physical attribute to be around a very long time and score the same amount of goals which is phenomenal and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Premier League.