The year ends with Pep Guardiola ascendant, his juego de posición, evolved over time and amended and slightly repackaged for England, cutting a swathe through the Premier League, just as it overwhelmed all in La Liga and the Bundesliga. There will be the usual complaints about how much money has been spent and, more pertinently, about the origin of that money, but English football has never seen anything quite like this.
When Guardiola was winning two Champions Leagues in three seasons at Barcelona, their style became hegemonic. There were refuseniks such as José Mourinho but the vast majority of clubs wanted to ape their way of playing. There was, briefly, a global obsession with possession statistics, which probably ended the week in 2013 when Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich respectively hammered Real Madrid and Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League semi-finals playing counterattacking football.
Related: Kevin De Bruyne: the grand puppet-master who makes Manchester City tick | Jonathan Wilson
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