Together: 4-In-A-Row

Announcer 1: The champions of 2021

are Manchester City!

Announcer 2: Kevin De Bruyne!

Gündoan!

The winners and still

the champions of the land, Manchester City!

Announcer 3: De Bruyne keeps on going and hits it!

What a sensational goal!

Announcer 4: Manchester City,

the kings of English football again!

Gary Lineker: I think most of us in the football world,

the neutrals, we're thinking,

are Manchester City completely unbeatable?

Seema Jaswal: Teams had managed to do three in a row.

Huddersfield Town back in the '20s had done it.

Arsenal back in the '30s.

Liverpool in the '80s.

And then of course City's biggest rivals,

Manchester United had recently won three on the spin.

But there's a reason that nobody

had managed to win four in a row

because it's virtually impossible.

-I think a lot of us were thinking

surely there comes a point

where you just can't keep churning out

great performance after great performance.

-There's only one thing that is more difficult than winning.

It's winning again.

You have to be at the top of your game constantly

during the season.

-Khaldoon Al Mubarak: You know, we have to always

sometimes pause and contextualise.

In over a hundred years of English football,

never any team was able to achieve

four championships in a row.

So once that sinks in, you start really appreciating

the magnitude, the difficulty,

the challenge, the tenacity required.

Lineker: My instinct was that

the most likely successor would be Arsenal.

Man 1: This feels like a different Arsenal side

with a different mentality

and that belief that actually, "This is our season."

Man 2: They've added strength to them,

they've added quality.

They look ready for the challenge.

Man 3: The only team really that's proven

that they can run them really close

is Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool.

Man 4: I just think Liverpool have got a manager

who's been there and done it before.

There has to be a massive improvement.

Woman 1: You always know that going toe to toe with them

will be a battle.

Man 5: They're all within their rights

to believe they can do this.

Man 6: They must be looking and going,

"This is as good a chance as we've had

for a number of years."

Man: Rodri. Rodri.

Announcer 1: Coming onto it now to shoot!

Announcer 2: Goal!

Announcer 3: The greatest story in club history

has an ending and what a final chapter!

Announcer 4: They have done it. They've done the Treble.

They've won the Champions League finally.

Jack Gaughan: I think when you do

something like they did with the Treble,

there's gonna be a subconscious drop-off.

An element of, sort of, hangover is going to exist.

It's human nature.

-For City, having achieved absolutely everything

that anyone could dream of as a player,

you think, "How do you go again?"

Txiki Begiristain: You have to see the reaction to something

that is absolutely exceptional.

That is to win the Treble.

What we could see is that there was still that hunger.

Pep Guardiola: So after the Treble, uh, you don't know,

even myself, how we would react,

how we would be.

-I think probably one of the great strengths

of-of Pep Guardiola

is his drive and his energy

and his ability to motivate the players season after season.

Now you'd think "Well, they're playing football.

They wanna play football, and they are competitive."

Yes, we are.

But if you drop even 1%, then you're in trouble.

-In psychology, we talk about different,

different types of motivation.

So you have this kind of pure extrinsic motivation.

"I-I-I do things because I wanna win prizes"

et cetera, et cetera.

And then you have a pure intrinsic motivation,

which is, "I do it because I love the game."

And although the prize is that the Treble last year

was a fantastic achievement,

the essence of why they play the game doesn't shift.

-I think you look at all of the great teams that have played

in the Premier League over the number of years,

they've never gone and done four in a row.

That had to give us the fuel and the fire

to do something that no one has ever done.

Jaswal: So the transfer window in England is really

an opportunity for clubs to strengthen,

to better what they had from the season before.

Ferran Soriano: Over the years, we've learnt that

in order to keep the team hungry

and the team sharp, we need to make changes.

-Man: Let's talk about Manchester City.

Woman: I actually think they've done good business,

and I think we've got to trust in Pep Guardiola.

Man: They have a player that ticks

all of the boxes that they need.

Woman: How does any team go about

taking that title away from you?

Soriano: We have to be very selective.

And I think we have the best coach

in the world in Pep.

And we have the best football director

in the world with Txiki.

So the transfer window, if I have to remember,

it was a bit awful

at least for, at least for me.

Because after doing the Treble, everyone was confused.

The ones that were, uh,

the protagonists of those, those trophies,

they were thinking that they should get-get more

or new contracts and taking the opportunity.

And the other ones that they were not playing finals,

they were really, uh, how to I say?

Pissed off.

And they were, they were trying

to-to-to get out from the club.

For Manchester City,

this window was really interesting

in terms of incomings and outgoings.

And there were certainly a few surprises.

-I think most of us in the game thought that

perhaps Manchester City

had given away a bit of grounds in the transfer window

because we saw a couple of big name players go out.

Gündoan obviously went to Barcelona,

and Mahrez went to Saudi.

That's a lot of goals and a lot of assists

going out of your team.

And of course Cole Palmer as well

who turned out to be a fantastic signing.

That may be maybe a little mistake

from Manchester City there.

But one thing I've noticed about Pep is...

it doesn't seem to ever bother him

or worry about players leaving.

If they want to go, if it's their time,

"Off you go, I'll get someone else in.'

Begiristain: We have to do these things.

We have to refresh the squad,

we have to move the squad.

We have to give also

to the manager new tools.

Begiristain: Mateo was coming with a lot of experience

and some profile that we didn't have.

He is that, uh, midfielder that driving the ball.

He-he break lines.

Reporter: That's it, nice and close guys, ready?

Mateo Kovai: They just love to-to speak about football.

How they want me to-to play.

What kind of positions they see me in.

And what I can bring to the team.

-Where is my friend, Mateo Kovai?

Lineker: A significant signing this.

Much sought after. A lot of clubs wanted him.

I think we all thought that Gvardiol was a good signing.

We'd seen him in the World Cup,

um, where he was incredibly impressive.

We all thought that he was gonna be a central defender,

but you never know what Pep's gonna do with players.

Pep sees things in a different way

to-to a lot of people.

Gvardiol: It's-it's much easier when I have, uh,

these players around me.

I have everything here what I need to,

to, to become a better player,

to become a better person.

Reporter: Manchester City have confirmed the signing

of Matheus Nunes.

Guardiola: I think with the new ones,

they, they settle and they realise

how we behave, what are our standards,

and what we have to do to defend it.

You cannot imagine how it helps to keep the team stable.

The players, they don't want to leave.

They are in the top of the world.

And what a better place to win trophies?

Reporter: We've got some breaking news to bring you.

Sky Germany are reporting that Bayern Munich

are interested in Manchester City's

Kyle Walker.

-So it was an interesting time