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Manchester City are magnificent but struggle to match thrills of United’s treble| Jonathan Wilson

A brilliant team are demolishing even closest rivals and can make history. But glory lies in drama as well as excellence

Manchester City are brilliant. They can win games with and without the ball. They can stifle teams with possession or eviscerate them on the counter. They can produce moments of breathtaking combination play but also have in Erling Haaland a centre-forward with a set of attributes, physical and technical, that has been seen only perhaps half a dozen times before. They are magnificent and seemingly on course for a treble. They are also a symptom of the financial structures that are destroying the game football was once understood to be.

The naive and the wilfully blind will say there have been dominant teams before, but not like this there haven’t. Assuming City do go on to win the Premier League, this will be the third time in English history a club have won five titles in six seasons: Liverpool did it between 1979 and 1984 and Manchester United between 1996 and 2001.

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