Pep Guardiola is a league-winning machine

Manchester City took a decisive step toward another Premier League title against a United team who never seemed up for the challenge.

With the title on the line, the latest edition of the Manchester derby was always going to have implications beyond the winner and loser on the Old Trafford pitch. Thirty miles away, Liverpool’s title hopes were hanging on the performance of their eternal rivals, United, losers of six of their last eight, and coming off a 4-0 beatdown against Everton.

Once United’s uber-conservative lineup came out, the chances both United and Liverpool would share the fate of losers following this game increased significantly. Call it a 3-5-2 all you want, but when your wing-backs are Luke Shaw and Ashley Young you’re essentially lining up with five at the back and playing not to lose. Unfortunately, when faced with a hungry, motivated and fine-tuned machine such as City, that strategy rarely accomplishes its mission.

With the stakes so high, it wasn’t surprising the first half was a “feel each other out”-type of affair, lacking in goalscoring opportunities and open play. On brand and in characteristic fashion, City had 70 percent possession, although that statistic didn’t materialize into anything more than a single significant chance, a Raheem Sterling shot from close range that David de Gea parried. It was de Gea’s finest moment, as his effort on the two City goals, especially the second, Leroy’s Sane’s shot that went right through him, left a lot to be desired for a goalie with his pedigree and in a game this important.

Bernardo Silva scored the first goal, a goal as big as another title win for City, and the rest was, as they say, history. City’s possession game really thrives once their opponents are forced to take more chances and commit more men forward rather than play the “destroy and counter” style that United set up to play at the start.

To follow up their record-setting 2017-18 campaign that saw them gain 100 points with another historic campaign speaks volumes of this City team. Pep Guardiola’s side have won 18 of their last 19 Premier League games and are on pace for 98 points. The fact they’ve achieved this without arguably their best player, Kevin De Bruyne, who has missed significant portions of the season, is even more impressive.

This time last year City were up 17 points on second-place United. With only a point separating first and second place this time around, this title race is far from over. Liverpool are still battling for the Champions League, and with three games to go they still have their best shot at winning the Premier League in almost three decades — a testament to the fantastic job Jurgen Klopp has done.

Unfortunately for Liverpool and all of City’s Premier League rivals, it’s becoming more and more obvious that Guardiola’s teams are built almost specifically for the slog and the grind of a domestic league marathon. Evidently, City haven’t shown to be able to overcome a bad game or an unlucky bounce in a single-elimination round type of competition, but in the long haul of league play there’s no one better at grinding out wins and accumulating points.

Should City come out on top of the Premier League again, Guardiola could boast winning an incredible eight of the last nine domestic league titles he’s been involved with across three different leagues and with three different teams. That’s truly a historic feat, even in the age of freewheeling transfer fee spending.