The Premier League Champions, who also claimed a fourth successive Carabao Cup and reached the Champions League Final for the first time, continued to establish our recent dominance, smashing new Club and league records along the way.
Pep Guardiola’s men fittingly ended the calendar year with victory in Wednesday night’s trip to Brentford, opening up an eight-point lead on our title rivals with our 36th league win and 19th away league win of 2021 – both of which are English top-flight records.
Former City midfielder Brown, who graduated through City’s Academy, made 110 appearances for the Club between 1995 and 1999 and is a regular guest and co-commentator on our Matchday Live show.
Reflecting on another glittering year, the 44-year-old says the Champions never cease to impress him and expects more records to tumble in 2022, as Guardiola’s side look to carry our momentum into the New Year.
“City over 2021 have just been incredible,” he told mancity.com.
“You just have to see the amount of wins - 36 Premier League wins in 2021 pretty much tells the story, plus the most top division wins in a calendar year.
“The list of accolades just keeps improving.
“Overall, it’s been an incredible 2021 – the Champions League Final perhaps the one disappointing moment, the one game in an otherwise really perfect 2021.”
City kick-off 2022 with a New Year’s Day visit to Arsenal with the Gunners enjoying a fine run of their own, victorious in each of their last four matches.
Previewing the clash in North London, Brown anticipates another closely-fought encounter but believes the Champions’ quality will shine through with an enviable strength in depth.
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“How tough will Arsenal be? It will be a tough game,” he continued.
“These are games in quick succession but if you look at numbers, hopefully the squad will be as good as it possibly can be – the fewer injuries, the better.
“When you’re looking at what elements Arsenal bring to the game, you have to say: the way the full-backs now overlap – [Bukayo] Saka coming off the line – and with [Gabriel] Martinelli, [Alexandre] Lacazette, [Martin] Odegaard and [Emile] Smith Rowe coming on, they have a really good system to play from and they’ve got confidence, grinding out results...
“I still feel though that when they’re put on the back foot, they’ve not been challenged of late with the teams they’ve played.
“It will be a tough game against Arsenal but I think City can go on and win it.”
