Manchester City: 2017/18 Premier League champions
Manchester City: 2017/18 Premier League champions

Manchester City confirmed as Premier League champions as Manchester United lose to West Brom


Pep Guardiola's Manchester City have been confirmed as 2017/18 Premier League champions after Manchester United lost at home to West Brom.

The Citizens put themselves on the brink of title glory with Saturday's 3-1 victory at Tottenham and United's failure to take points off the bottom side on Sunday left City beyond mathematical reach.

In Sporting Life's pre-season predictions, Matt Brocklebank correctly tipped Manchester City as champions at 19/10 - after predicting Chelsea to win the year before.

Jay Rodriguez headed the only goal of a dull contest at Old Trafford 18 minutes from time, handing the Baggies an unlikely victory. The result leaves City 16 points clear at the top with five games remaining and on a total of 87. The most United can now reach is 86.

READ MORE: How many Premier League records can Manchester City break this season?

By completing the job after 33 games, City have emulated the achievement of United, who secured the crown with the same number of matches to spare in 2001.

City would have won the title with a record six games to go had they beaten United in last weekend's Manchester City derby at the Etihad Stadium, but they surrendered a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2.

With that loss coming between two defeats to Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-finals, City endured a rare indifferent spell, but, after returning to form against Spurs at Wembley, celebrations were delayed by just one week.

A selection of facts about City's title win (via Opta)

  • Guardiola is the first Spanish manager to win the English top-flight title. The previous 25 Premier League titles have been won by four different Italian managers (Conte, Ancelotti, Ranieri & Mancini), two different Scottish managers (Ferguson & Dalglish) a French manager (Wenger), a Chilean manager (Pellegrini) and a Portuguese manager (Mourinho).
  • This is the ninth successive season that the reigning top-flight champions have failed to follow up their success with a back-to-back title win – the last time this happened was in the nine seasons between 1984-85 and 1992-93.
  • Manchester City have won their third Premier League title, equalling Arsenal’s tally of title wins in the competition (3) – only Manchester United (13) and Chelsea (5) have won more.
  • This was Manchester City’s fifth English top-flight league title overall – only seven clubs have won more than this, with rivals Manchester United having won the most (20).
  • Manchester City have won the Premier League title with five games remaining; equalling the English top-flight record. They have equalled the efforts of Manchester United (1907-08 and 2000-01) and Everton (1984-85) who all won the top-flight title with five games to spare.
  • This is the second earliest in terms of date that the Premier League title has been sealed (April 15th) – just behind Manchester United’s win on April 14th 2001. The top-flight record was managed by Preston North End; who sealed the top-flight title on January 5th 1889 and in the modern era, the earliest date that the title was won was by Everton in 1970 (April 1st 1970).
  • Manchester City have already won more points from their 33 league games this season (87) than 11 of the previous Premier League champions had won at the end of their title-winning campaign - this includes their last title win in 2013-14 (86).
  • Manchester City need just 13 points from their last five games to reach the 100-point mark in the Premier League; something that has never been achieved in the English top-flight (based on three points for a win).
  • Manchester City have defeated every single team this season in the Premier League – only the third time that a Premier League team have done this in a single campaign (Manchester United in 2010-11 and Chelsea in 2005-06). They are the 10th team in top-flight history to achieve this.
  • This was the 5th season in which the Premier League title was decided at Old Trafford – more than any other stadium in the competition.
  • Guardiola is just the third manager to win the top-flight title in England and at least two of the other big five European leagues, after Carlo Ancelotti (3) and Jose Mourinho (2).
  • Guardiola has won the top-flight league title in seven of his nine seasons as a manager, with the only exceptions being 2011-12 at Barcelona and 2016-17 at Manchester City.

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Page last updated at 1850 BST 15/04/18

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