Gary Neville reacts to Manchester City winning the Premier League title

First, Manchester City will lift the Premier League trophy this afternoon after being confirmed last night as champions. So, a party atmosphere in store at the Etihad after City clinched their fifth title in six seasons. Ben Rantz, lucky man, is going to be at the party. Ben, good afternoon. Yeah, welcome to the Etihad Stadium where you can see preparations are ongoing for Manchester City to lift the Premier League trophy for the third consecutive season. Four hours or so till kick-off and outside there are already fans turning up in the sunshine ready for that celebration. I'm joined by Gary Neville, I'm part of the Sky Sports commentary team today. Gary, this season it's been quite remarkable what we've seen from Manchester City on the pitch. I mean, after they got their hands on this title essentially last night, how do you sum up what we've seen development on the side this year? Look, I think that for the first five, six months of the season it was a very even race between them and Arsenal. In fact, Arsenal obviously were in front but I think it was around early March that Manchester City really just started to get into gear and perform and what you always think is that you need to hit form at the right time in the season and the form in the last two months has been absolutely exceptional. Huge respect, congratulations to Manchester City, not just for winning this title but for winning three on the trot. It takes a huge performance. I know people sometimes focus on the other things around Manchester City, the amount of money that's been spent but if you look at it over a four, five year period the money that they've spent here isn't, to be fair, so different than a lot of other clubs. In fact, other clubs have spent more. The performance of the players and the performance of the manager is absolutely exceptional. You have to hand it to Pep Guardiola and his players because they've achieved a really high standard in this last two or three months. There were imperfections in the first part of the season, pre-World Cup, post-World Cup, where you thought they're not quite clicking, they're not quite right but I have to say some of the performances against Real Madrid, the performances against Arsenal here, the performance against Bayern Munich here was exceptional. I thought that was a really world-class game of football against Bayern Munich. I think Bayern Munich played very well in that first half, Manchester City to come out as dominant as they did so they've paid some fantastic opposition and they deserve it. You can't take that away from them because they're by far the best team in the country. We've seen the trophy here on the pitch already again, third year in a row, five and six seasons. I mean look, only Manchester United have won three in a row in the Premier League era. How difficult is that? It's difficult because you're asking people to achieve the same standards in a very tough league year after year and ordinarily what happens, it happened the first year that Manchester City won the league under Mancini and it happened under Pellegrini. You see a dip off the year after because everyone relaxes. Pep Guardiola doesn't allow that to happen. The players here have also bought into that, that consistency and reliability and standard setting over a long period of time is real achievement and what they've done now is dominate the Premier League in the last four, five, six years. Liverpool did brilliantly to hang on to their coattails and win a Premier League for two or three, four seasons so well done to them for challenging this city but I'm not one of those who buys along in the sort of like it's an unfair competition. I'm one of those that says to the rest of them, get your backsides in gear, get yourselves together, play better, do better and try and reach the standards of Manchester City. We don't want to see Manchester City drop their standards for everybody else to then be level with them. We want to see everybody else push those standards and Jurgen Klopp did that at Liverpool for two or three seasons. Who do you think's best prepared I suppose to challenge City moving forward because you talk about Arsenal have this fantastic season but have fallen away, Liverpool have had a difficult year, Chelsea in a rebuild, Tottenham new manager coming in. I mean who is best placed do you feel in the future to really push them? The team that have got an alignment of quality and mentality. Manchester City's players here they have real quality that goes without saying but in the most difficult moments of the season in the Premier League they're able to put a run together and come through difficult challenges and obviously that takes a lot. It takes the manager as well obviously who can guide them through moments and bring that stability and the other clubs have got to look at that same model. It happened at Manchester United for many years under Sir Alex Ferguson, happened with Liverpool under Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly, great managers at Arsene Wenger had a period at Arsenal. You've got to be a great manager and you've got to have a great group of players to be able to do it consistently like they have and the other teams have got to aspire to that and at this moment in time you know the one who's proved it over the last five or six years is Liverpool. I know Arsenal have run City close this year but the only team I can say at the moment that have demonstrated that they can go close to Pep Guardiola's Man City is Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool. Now I know they've dropped well below the standards this season but you don't know whether they're going to get back to those standards next season because they have proven they can do that before. Is this the best Pep Guardiola Manchester City side that we've seen? This is the favourite Pep Guardiola team that I've seen this season with Haaland in it and Grealish in it more often and actually the last 10 games has been probably the best that I've seen Manchester City play for what I like in football. There'll be others who disagree with me but I like the powerful back four of Walker, Stones at right back, Kanji or Ake at left back and then Diaz, Laporte or Kanji whoever plays in the centre. I like a strong back four, one that doesn't give you a chance. Look at Manchester City's last 10 games I think they've only conceded six goals. Before that I think they conceded maybe 10 or 11 in the previous 10 games and they'd obviously lost two games in that period so I really like a strong back four. The midfield is outstanding, Rodrigo and De Bruyne but I like the imperfection of Haaland that he brings, the idea that not everything's perfect technically. I like the idea that they can go long, they can cross the ball a lot more from areas that are far out so for me this last 10 games, I like watching Manchester City more this season than I have done in previous seasons or even when Pep Guardiola was at Barcelona because I felt as though that was a repetitive technical machine whereas this one here now has got power, it's got strength, the set pieces are absolutely formidable with the height that they have in the team. They've got a group of monsters in that 11 if you look at them. The back four are all six foot, Rodri's six foot, Gundogan's tall, good in the air, Haaland's tall, Grealish is quite tall so for me this is a very different Pep Guardiola team this season in terms of sort of physicality and I like the idea that they're not as perfect on the ball as they were but I think it makes them more dangerous and I don't think they would have been able to achieve what they would have achieved if they didn't have that sort of power and physicality and Haaland presence. I think that's why they bought Haaland last summer to get to the point where they can win the Champions League, the FA Cup and the league and that's what's happened. The football maybe technically isn't as perfect even though it's still a high level but I think the actual watch is a lot better and a lot more entertaining. A word on the captain, the man who's going to get his hands on that Premier League trophy, another standout season but a lot of speculation again about his future, how important is it do you think for Manchester City to try and keep him at all costs? I don't think Manchester City are in a position whereby they have to keep one player at all costs, they have to keep the manager at all costs and it was the same at Manchester United when I was there under Sir Alex Ferguson, great players come, great players go but if the manager's there, the stability's there then you can withstand a great player leaving. If Ilkay Gundogan leaves it cannot be because of footballing reasons, it can't even be because of the weather today, look at it, look at it Ilkay, it's amazing here in Manchester. It will be because of family reasons, maybe sporting reasons that he wants to challenge himself in another league somewhere like Barcelona in La Liga and some players have that idea that they want to play in different leagues. David Beckham left Manchester United to go and play at Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo went and left Manchester United, Ruud van Nistelrooy because they wanted to play in other leagues and the time was right. So I think if he left it would be with a handshake, it would be with a thank you very much and it's just a different sporting project that he wants in his life but for Manchester City I wouldn't be too worried because yeah a great player leaves but a conveyor belt has occurred here at Manchester City, Calvin Phillips hasn't played football in the last year and a half, two years and Pep Guardiola usually makes players come good, he usually allows players to bed him for a year or so, so he'll come in or they'll sign somebody else, Bernardo Silva will go in there, De Bruyne will end up playing more in midfield or a bit deeper or whatever it might be, they'll be able to cope. I'm going to ask you then about the treble, obviously part of that Manchester United team, the only team to have done this particular treble, how well suited are this team to do it, do you think they will get over the line? Oh I think for City now not to win the treble with Manchester United and Inter Milan in front of them would be a massive disappointment, they're strong favourites in both games, they're in great form, they've got everything going right for them, it'd be a miracle if they don't win the treble in my eyes and that's not me putting pressure on them but you look at Manchester City, any team that they play at this moment in time, they've just destroyed Real Madrid with multiple Champions League winners in their team the other night here, so I don't think they're going to fear Inter Milan, they're not going to fear Manchester United, anything can happen in a final, we know that, but if Manchester City play at their level then those two teams are in big trouble and I would say that Manchester City now, I don't know what the odds are for them to be treble winners but they're odds on favourites and I said yesterday in a piece that I did that only Sir Alex Ferguson has ever won this, has ever done this before as a manager, Pep Guardiola would be a worthy companion of Sir Alex Ferguson and these players that have played this season would be worthy companions, that doesn't mean to say I want them to do it by the way, I'd love Manchester United to beat them in the FA Cup final of course or Inter Milan but if they were to do it they would be worthy companions because of the levels that they've reached and the level that this manager has reached here. Thank you so much for your time, Pitchside here at the Etihad Stadium, part of the Sky Sports commentary team, of course the game against Chelsea is all live this afternoon as Manchester City will be crowned Premier League champions for the fifth time in six seasons.