Manchester City’s Treble is on with inevitable step taken to top spot

Wednesday evening’s Premier League victory over Scott Parker’s Burnley confirmed what many Manchester City fans had been hoping and waiting for – the club being back at the summit of the top-flight table with the advantage now very much Pep Guardiola’s in the race for the title.

Money had been on Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal ‘bottling it’ again in the 2025/26 campaign, and following the League Cup Final defeat and their loss to City in the recent league encounter, Arsenal’s form had plummeted and the nine-point gap that stood quickly evaporated.

With their performances slipping since the New Year, a detailed Betmaster review would have made a point of results eventually following.

Despite Burnley’s incredibly poor form this season, which has seen them pick up only four wins all campaign, they put up a very admirable battle during the midweek clash at Turf Moor. And even though they managed to restrict a now largely fully-firing City to only a single goal, the defeat consigned them to relegation back to the Championship for the coming year.

For City, in returning to top spot as the wider football world now quickly heads towards the final weeks of the season, it completes a poetic circle as the Etihad Stadium outfit have not been at the top of the table since the opening week of the campaign.

That more than admirably shows how clinical Manchester City’s late surge has been compared to how long the Gunners have been considered favourites, if you ignore their ‘annual late choke’ as the pressure really builds up.

Naturally, whilst there are plenty of neutrals enjoying the implosion at the Emirates Stadium and the panic-stricken late night BBQ’s and social media messages, others in the press are focusing in on how poor a performance it should be considered by City.

The obvious suggestion being that in only beating a side ultimately bound for relegation this year by a single goal, it epitomises the proverbial ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’ after the earlier Arsenal victory, complacency or a sense of entitlement, and it again gave those in some quarters the opportunity to discuss what they felt were over exuberant celebrations that somehow insulted the opposition on the day.

With this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final clash with Southampton next on the cards, City fans will probably be slightly disappointed that they are not again facing off against Arsenal, but with the St Mary’s outfit putting them out in the quarter-finals, there is no way Guardiola will be complacent for this one.

With the tallies in the Premier League now identical between City and Arsenal on all but goal difference (and an all important game in hand), nobody should be expecting a weakened team – a slightly rested one, yes – as the FA Cup represents the next step on a potential Treble.

Should the rumour mill speculation about this possibly being Guardiola’s last season in M11 ultimately prove to be true, then there cannot be a finer way to go out than with another domestic Treble – particularly after such first team upheaval during the summer.

It would make the achievement even more monumental, irrespective of the trailing league form for so long.