Manchester City’s spell of unique dominance shows no sign of relenting after record-breaking season

All dynasties feel permanent at the time. Any truly dominant team projects an ominous sense that they will be there at the top forever. But everything ends and successful sports teams generally have to obey the same laws of gravity or mortality as everyone else.

But what about this one?

Manchester City will parade their four domestic trophies around Manchester on Monday before going off to rest and prepare for next year, the fourth season of the Pep Guardiola era at the Etihad. They will start next season with the Community Shield against Liverpool before trying to defend their Premier League title again, aiming for the first ‘threepeat’ in English football since 2009.

Normally you would expect a drop-off. Because no team can stay on the top forever. Especially when they have spent two years doing such a high-performance tightrope-walk. Eventually they will have to drop their level, to get comfortable, to take a breather, and that is when the results will turn. No-one can keep this up forever.

What if City are different? Not many people expected City to be just as successful this year than last. But they retained the league, with just two fewer points and added the FA Cup to their haul too. Clearly Pep Guardiola knows to instil a consistent hunger and drive into his players, making sure that they are never satisfied and never relaxed, more successfully than any other elite manager in the game. It happened at Barcelona and Bayern Munich and it has happened so far at City too.

So in the aftermath of this one-sided FA Cup final at Wembley, looking forward to what next season will bring, Guardiola was still bullish about his team’s capacity to improve. “Individual actions, individual movements,” Guardiola said. “Mistakes, during the game there were a lot of mistakes. That were repeated. In some positions and some players, they can improve it. And new players coming in.”

For Guardiola, as long as the players improve, then the team can improve. As long as every technical detail can be tightened up then the team as a unit can get better. Even if it looks unlikely after 100 points and 98 points. Even if the statistical chances of improving on that look remote.

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That is what gives this team that sheen of permanence. Because this is not just a one-off generation of brilliant players who have found a chemistry together and a coach who knows how to get them going. There is nothing contingent or serendipitous about this City team. This is the result of years of planning, billions of spending, some of the sharpest brains in football and the deepest pockets. This is what Arsene Wenger called ‘petrol and ideas’ and it is why the City empire is not going anywhere.

This is such a well-built, deeply-rooted team that they look resilient to the type of problems that can disrupt more fragile sides. They have had to do without Kevin de Bruyne for most of this season and it only cost them two points. To see him shredding Watford here as a second half substitute was a reminder that a full season of De Bruyne next year will leave City even better.

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Yes, they could suffer more injuries to more key players, and ultimately anything can happen in football. But think about everything we have seen from City this year, look at Guardiola and the players, and ask yourself if you think it is likely they will get in the high-90s of points again next year? Surely that is far more probable than any serious drop-off.

That should be the worry for their rivals. City's dominance is unique and that is because it is built on stronger foundations than anything we have seen before. It might be unusual for them to sustain it because everything ends eventually. But next year, at least, it would be more surprising to see anything change.