The Carabao Cup is safely stored and City are 20 games away from a clean sweep and footballing nirvana
It is probably fair to say Manchester City’s in-house team made the fawning soft-focus documentary All or Nothing a year too soon. “Guys we are so close!” That was your catchphrase. Except, they weren’t really.
City won the Premier League by a mile last year thanks to a run of sustained sublime form. But otherwise their season lost its dramatic tension on 4 April when City were eviscerated by Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-final first leg, shrinking the scope of their ambitions to that near-perfect league season. Fast forward 10 months and Sunday’s slow-burn victory in the Carabao Cup final has set up a fascinating point of contrast; one of those moments where the background noise starts to fall away and it makes sense, for the first time, to contemplate the wildly improbable.
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The United treble team in 1999 played seven games in 26 days. Should City get as far they would end with four in 28 days
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