In the absence of recognised forwards Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus for sustained periods across the campaign, Guardiola has deployed a fluid false nine formation, spearheaded by an interchangeable central striker.
That ingenuity has helped yield an impressive goals return across the entire team, with six different players hitting over ten goals in all competitions on our way to a third Premier League title in four seasons.
And while the City boss admits that a lethal frontman at the top of his game is a lethal weapon in any side’s arsenal, he insists that a collective attacking effort will always outweigh an individual one.
Ahead of Sunday’s Premier League finale against Everton, he reflected: “I would love to have a guy who scores 50 goals, but at the same time I don’t like to put all the pressure on one player.
“At Barcelona, (Lionel) Messi scored every season but we also had Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto’o who scored a lot.
“To win titles, especially the Premier League, with one guy (scoring goals), you can’t win.
“The statistics speak for themselves, you need three guys with more than 10 goals to be competitors.
“When you have a guy who can score 25 or 30 it helps a lot, honestly.
“We will try for the way we play everybody being involved and scoring goals.
“Raheem (Sterling) scores, Riyad (Mahrez), (Ilkay) Gundogan, (Phil) Foden has this quality, Sergio (Aguero), Gabriel (Jesus), the more players we have of this quality the better we will be.”
Hear Guardiola‘s thoughts in full via the video above...
