Pep Guardiola hailed the “insane” achievements of his history-making Manchester City side after they won a fourth Premier League title in a row.
A 3-1 victory over West Ham at the Etihad ensured City became the first team to achieve the feat, pipping Arsenal by two points.
Guardiola has now won six titles since joining the club in 2016, and he told Sky Sports: “The first words for Arsenal, Liverpool as well but especially Arsenal to push us to another level.
CHAMPIONS AGAIN OLE OLE! 🏆🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/75a5rVzeLw
— Manchester City (@ManCity) May 19, 2024
“Especially this one has been an incredible season. We get the message, so I know they will be there for many years because young manager, big talent, and a young squad.
“They sent us a message that we have to be careful for the next years but today is a day to celebrate.
“If I landed here and the people tell me in the next seven years, you’re going to win six Premier Leagues, I would say, ‘You’re insane, it’s not going to happen’. It happened.”
Guardiola’s contract runs until the end of next season but he implied he could stay longer, adding: “The reality is I’m closer to leave than to stay. It’s eight years, will be nine.
“Right now my feeling is I want to stay next season. We talked with the club, we have time to talk next season because I have to see the players as well, if they follow me, they follow us.”
City took control of the game after little more than a minute thanks to player-of-the-season Phil Foden, with the England midfielder capping a phenomenal campaign with a second goal to take his tally to 27 in all competitions.
“It’s so hard to put into words what we’ve done today,” Foden said. “I think now we’ve put ourselves in the history books, no team’s ever done it and you see what it means to the fans and what it means to us. We’ve been working all year for this moment. It’s such a special feeling today.
“You never get bored of it. I want this feeling every time. When you win something, there’s no better feeling. I just want to keep winning as much as I
can.”
Arsenal did their job with a 2-1 victory over Everton but it was not enough for Mikel Arteta’s side.
He told TNT Sports: “I’m very proud. First of all, congratulations to Manchester City. They are the champions. They have been incredible since December.
“We’ve tried with everything that we had. You can sense how much we wanted it, we really tried and we improved a lot, but it wasn’t enough unfortunately.
“Success cannot only be measured by comparing to somebody else. We beat every record that this club had, apart from winning it.
“This is the most competitive league ever in the history and we have to be better and have to find ways to improve.”
There were emotional scenes, meanwhile, at Anfield, where Jurgen Klopp waved goodbye to Liverpool after nine years.
Addressing the fans after a 2-0 win over Wolves, he said: “I’m completely surprised. I thought I would already be in pieces to be honest but I’m not, I’m so happy, I can’t believe it.
“I’m so happy about you all, about the atmosphere, about the game, about being part of this family, about us, how we celebrated this day. It’s just incredible, thank you so much.
“It doesn’t feel like an end, it just feels like the start because I saw today a football team playing full of talent, full of youth, full of creativity, full of desire, full of greed.”
Klopp urged the fans to get behind new manager Arne Slot, even leading a chant of the Dutchman’s name.
“I saw a lot of people crying and it will happen to me tonight because I will miss people but as well change is good,” the German said.
“You never know exactly what to expect but, if you go with the right attitude, then everything will be fine. The basics are 100 per cent there and that’s the team and that’s the new manager.
“You go full throttle into it, you welcome the new manager like you welcomed me. I’m one of you now. I love you to bits.”