Man City vs Cardiff: Manchester United treble shows how hard City quadruple will be

Pep Guardiola is not currently answering questions on the quadruple. “End of April,” he will say after any attempt to coax a response out of him on the subject. April, after all, could be the cruellest month for Manchester City’s hopes of making history.

Their schedule starts with Cardiff tonight, followed by an FA Cup semi-final on Saturday. It then includes three games against Tottenham Hotspur, a Manchester derby at Old Trafford and trips to Selhurst Park and Turf Moor.

If the form which produced 11 wins from the last 12 games is maintained over the next 28 days, then immortality will be within City’s grasp. One slip-up – a defeat in either knock-out competition, perhaps even just a draw in the league – could lead to ruin.

And while he would not be drawn on the quadruple on Tuesday afternoon, Guardiola did at least start to contemplate the historical scale of the task at hand.

“Why should you [talk about] the quadruple when in this country – a legendary country – it has never happened before?” he asked. “Legendary teams like Liverpool, the period with Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Chelsea, Arsene Wenger with Arsenal – no one did it. So why should we do it?”

There is a good reason why no English team has previously won all four major honours in a single campaign: it is hard enough to win three. And what followed from Guardiola was an even-handed appraisal of the current, greatest single-season achievement in English football’s history.

“We can’t forget that even the team that won the treble with Sir Alex Ferguson – an incredible team in 98/99 – won the league with 79 points,” he said. “In the semi-final of the Cup, they had 10 v 11 and Ryan Giggs ran past five or six. In the final of the Champions League against Bayern at Nou Camp, you know everything there.

“To win the treble is so tough. One point difference in the Premier League. That semi-final of the Cup against Arsenal, Bergkamp missed a penalty, red card for Roy Keane. And the chances Bayern had – hitting the crossbar two times – and then with the last two corners United scored.”

Guardiola, not shy of showing admiration for the greatest triumph of City’s greatest rivals, continued: “The spirit, the desire to win the treble and of course the quality of everybody at United means they did it, but it shows how difficult it is, the way they won it. That has only happened once in our entire lives.”

He is great admirer of Ferguson and knows the story of ‘99 well enough to recall United’s points total without skipping a beat, but Guardiola’s argument here was that as brilliant as the treble-winners were, they still had to fall on the right side of the fine margins. Lucky generals, and all that.

And ultimately, whether his City team will be as fortunate down the final stretch is out of his control. They could do everything within their power between now and end of the month to put themselves in the best possible position to achieve a hitherto unprecedented feat. Still, they fall short.

That’s why, at the start of April, with as many as 14 potential games left remaining, it is still too early to focus on anything but the forthcoming game. “The reality is Cardiff, no more. It’s about training good, training well again, preparing, resting in the afternoon, winning the game, the recovery and then – what’s next?”

It was April where United’s class of ‘99 began to flounder a little, as it turns out. After winning 14 of their 17 games since the turn of the year, they won just three of their seven that month, drawing the other four. Guardiola and City do not have the same room for error.

And yet, two of those United victories – the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal and the return leg in Turin – made their legend. It is now, in the final run, as the blossom grows on trees and arses start to twitch, that claims to greatness are counted and weighed. Can City surpass all that has gone before them? Ask Pep at the end of the month.