City are Barclays Premier League champions for the second time in three years after a comfortable 2-0 win over West Ham on the final day of the 2013/14 season.
Vincent Kompany’s 49th minute strike was the 156th goal of a dazzling season which saw the great entertainers complete a league and Capital One Cup double.
Style and substance. The Manuel Pellegrini way.
“It’s not just winning titles that is important, but it’s the way you win them,” Pellegrini explained in his post-match press conference.
“It doesn’t matter who you play, maybe it’s easy to score a goal and then go behind the ball. We have players to play on the counter-attack, they are fast and technical, but again, I’m not criticizing the way other teams play, but if it was me, I wouldn’t be happy to win in that way.
“The fans enjoyed the whole season - we broke the records for the most goals scored by any team in England. It is the way we must play with the quality of players we have.
“Of course I am proud to manage this group of players and this club. It’s a great honour to be the first manager from outside of Europe to win the title but I’m not the most important person.
I just tried to play in the way this team must play because I like that style of play.
...Manuel Pellegrini...
“I think we all enjoyed this season – the players, me, the fans – because the team played very well, this is as important as winning the title.
“I congratulate all of the teams – it was a fabulous Premier League.”
So many qualities are examined over the course of a 38-game title challege.
Endurance, flair, patience, but what was the most important characteristic required for this success?
For Manuel, the answer is simple.
“Trust in the way we play,” Pellegrini asserted.
“It was a very difficult season – just a few days we were top of the league in the end. We had three games in hand for much of the year. We were always looking at the table position behind – nine points behind Chelsea, seven points behind Liverpool, or whatever it was.
“We are the only team involved in the four competitions until near the end.
The players always believed in the work we were doing and that we could catch up when we played the games.”
...Manuel Pellegrini...
Pellegrini also pointed to the improvement in his team’s away form and the defeat to Liverpool as the two turning points in the campaign.
“There were many key moments in the season – one was at the beginning when we had taken just won just a few points from the away games,” Manuel said.
“At that moment, I spoke to the players and we continued to play the same way. I always said we would continue to play the same way as we didn’t deserve to lose those points.
“From that moment to now, we are the team who has won the most points away.
“The second moment was the game against Liverpool – a game we didn’t deserve to lose. In that moment, we didn’t have the league in our hands but we never gave up hope that Liverpool could drop points.
“We started with a difficult game against Sunderland – it wasn’t the best week but we recovered, we won the last five games and won the title.”
