CAN an achievement be simultaneously extraordinary and also entirely expected?
Winning the English title three years in a row is extraordinary: only four clubs have done so previously, namely Huddersfield Town, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United (twice).
Achieving the treble of domestic title, main domestic cup, and the European Cup/ Champions League is pretty rare too. Celtic did that in 1967, followed by Ajax (1972), PSC Eindhoven (1988), Manchester United (1999), Barcelona (2009 and 2015), Inter Milan (2010), and Bayern Munich (2013 and 2020).
Don't sneer at or dismiss the Scottish or Dutch Leagues – if you win the Big Cup, you're obviously a top team.
Manchester City have achieved the first feat, an English title treble, and are on course to complete THE treble.
Football being football, Manchester United stand in their way in the FA Cup Final, with Inter their opponents in the Champions League decider.
The plaudits have been ringing out, quite rightly, for City.
Yet no one who knows football should say that what they've done is any sort of surprise.
City started this season with the most expensive squad in the world. The most valuable squad in the world. The most stable squad in England (and second most stable in the world). (Not my opinions, but the statistics compiled by CIES, the International Centre for Sports Studies/ Centre International d'Etude du Sport).
Keeping great players together and adding the best centre-forward in the world (Erling Braut Haaland) will clearly make a team get better and better.
All driven by a quite brilliant, innovative manager in Pep Guardiola.
The only surprise this season has been the identity of City's rivals at the top. Liverpool have under-achieved, while Arsenal have over-achieved, albeit having spent heavily in recent seasons.
I've praised Pep's tactical genius in this campaign. Last season I noted their players' remarkable resilience in holding off Liverpool's challenge.
Pep ensures that City get what they pay for.
Sure, he's only ever managed top teams, but it's like Formula One – the best teams are paired with a top driver.
Besides, Pep would improve any team and any player who wants to listen and learn.
The same goes for Jurgen Klopp, Erik ten Hag, Mikel Arteta, Eddie Howe, Roberto di Zerbi, Unai Emery, Thomas Frank, among the many top managers now operating in England.
City's dominance of the richest league in the world is clearly no mean feat.
Manchester United have spent almost as much, but until ten Hag’s arrival have mostly made poor, over-priced signings – the worst in the world in that regard, according to CIES. Chelsea have also been ludicrous this season, although their stacked squad might come good in time under Mauricio Pochettino.
In contrast, City buy very well, guided by former Barcelona men Ferran Sorriano and Txiki Begiristain.
Yet the attempts to say that what Pep has done is nigh on impossible don't bear scrutiny.
City's supporters and cheerleaders in the media seem to think that spending should be entirely on their terms.
The Times of London's main soccer writer recently basically accepted that City had repeatedly broken spending rules – but, bizarrely, argued that they were entitled to do so in order to break the duopoly of Manchester United and Liverpool.
I presume that's a different Liverpool to the one which has won only one English title since 1990.
Let's, for now, forget the rights and wrongs of City's income sources, apart from noting this legal adage: If you're innocent, argue on the facts; if you're guilty, get into the technicalities.
The first argument about spending from City fans was that their club had to be allowed to catch up on the long-established top clubs such as Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal, and also Chelsea, whose vast expenditure under Putin's pal Roman Abramovich elevated them to the upper echelons of English and European football.
Yet now that City are indisputably top dogs, their supporters are pointing critically to the spending of rivals who are trying to catch them up. Go figure.
For several seasons City fans only talked about who had the most expensive signings. Strangely, that line disappeared after they bought Jack Grealish for £100m.
Net spend didn't matter either, apparently, only wages.
By that logic, I could pay 15 of my mates huge salaries and we'd win the Premier League. Spoiler alert – we wouldn't.
Now, though, City fans in their stands and in the English media are talking about net spend but only, weirdly, over the last five seasons.
Why might that be?
Is there any connection with the fact that such a timeframe excludes the following City signings?: Kevin de Bruyne, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Ederson, John Stones, Ilkay Gundogan, and Aymeric Laporte. All but the last-named are still mainstays of the City team.
Conveniently, that five-year timeframe ignores spending of more than HALF A BILLION EUROS in Pep's first two seasons at the Etihad, a net spend of more than E400m.
That argument is rather like me boasting about the Porsche I bought in 2017 being faster than the new Micra my friend purchased last summer.
Worse than that, it would be akin to me making out that my mate should catch me up because he spent £400 on tyres and £300 on brake pads last summer while I only added a new wing mirror costing £200. The Porsche will still be faster than the Micra, especially with an excellent driver.
A side that reached the 2021 Champions League Final and really should have been in last year's decider, while winning back-to-back English Premier League titles, clearly doesn't need to spend much more anyway.
I get that people enjoy watching Manchester City play; they are wonderfully entertaining.
I get that many who don't support Liverpool, or Manchester United, or Arsenal, are amused at City winning the titles instead of them.
What I don't get is those who can't see what is happening to English football.
For years Scottish football was derided as a duopoly. Well, that's still twice as good as a monopoly.
City have now won five of the last six Premier Leagues.
Can you really see anyone stopping them next season, for what would be an unprecedented four-in-a-row?
Sure, Guardiola is a major factor, but there are other top class managers out there too.
CIES made predictions for the winners of the 'Big 5' European Leagues this season. If Borussia Dortmund win at home on Sunday they'll only have got England and France correct. CIES tipped Real Madrid in Spain (with Barcelona to be third), Bayern Munich in Germany, and Inter in Italy (with Napoli to finish third).
The English Premier League is becoming a higher class Ligue 1.
Even with so much money in the EPL, City's panel of players is at another level. They could afford to sell Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, and Oleksandr Zinchenko last summer - and still their squad is better this season.
If they want to, they can out-spend anyone this summer, even Saudi-backed Newcastle United, because City will have bigger income.
Expect the extraordinary to continue for years to come.
