Pep Guardiola has urged his Manchester City side to establish themselves as “the best team in history” after the champions moved to within two points of Chelsea’s record tally for a season in the top flight.
City’s 4-1 thrashing of West Ham took them to 93 points with three games still to play, and to within one goal of the 103 Carlo Ancelotti’s Chelsea rattled up in 2010.
Guardiola has invited his players to target the records as extra motivation over the campaign’s last few weeks and hopes to eclipse the points haul achieved by José Mourinho’s side in 2005 in next Sunday’s game against Huddersfield.
“I’m happy we will receive the Premier League trophy and [have] the chance to be the best team in history in England, with the most points,” said Guardiola. “We are going to try to do it next Sunday and get the record of 96 points at home when we receive the trophy in front of our people.
“It is incredible. The numbers are a consequence of what we have done. We will try and surpass the number of goals and points but the guys have to play well and fight a lot.
“We have something special in terms of confidence and we needed some targets to set in front of us. But these players like to play football. They are professionals.
“They want to play and the guys on the bench want to play. They enjoy training and playing, like amateurs. They want to play for something, too. So, once we won the Premier League, the target became the numbers. It’s good to see something to fight for, to achieve something.”
Guardiola reiterated his desire to add “maybe one, maybe two, no more than that” to his squad over the summer before a title defence and reminded his players they can still improve as individuals and a collective. “Football is not a finished business: be more clinical,” he added.
“The last five or 10 minutes of the first half here were not good. At 4-1 we weren’t hungry enough to score another one. There were individual mistakes, our full-backs not controlling the players inside, so there are many aspects we can improve. If it was perfect, I would not be here next season. I would be done. The level of consistency was high this season, yes, but we are still a young team. Our strikers have an average age of 22.
“For 20 guys in our squad, this will be the first time they’ve won the Premier League. That’s why it’s good. Recent history shows Premier League teams have not been able to defend their title. That is our challenge.”
