TEDDY SHERINGHAM: Only special teams win the Treble – it’s a pleasure to be ranked alongside this phenomenal Man City side
- Manchester City have deserved their treble after a phenomenal season
- It’s an honour for my 1999 Man United side to be ranked alongside them
- Pep Guardiola has taken City to a new level, I’d love to have played for him
There is Treble talk around March of most seasons if Liverpool, Chelsea or Manchester City are going well and I’ve always thought, ‘Nah, I don’t really want them to do it’.
But with this City team, you almost felt it was inevitable because they’re that good. In all honesty, it’s a pleasure for our 1999 team to be ranked alongside them as well as vice-versa because they are phenomenal. It doesn’t reduce our achievement whatsoever.
Only special teams can do it. I watched the game on Saturday night and heard Guardiola say how incredibly difficult it is to win the Treble. What we did was brilliant and the same goes for City.
Would our United have beaten Pep’s team? We’ll never know, of course, and there is so little to choose between us, it might have depended on the referee.
We could do a bit of everything and Sir Alex Ferguson was among the first to embrace the squad system with four strikers he could call upon at different times. Some of the challenges considered fair 20 years ago might be penalised now.
Man City won the Champions League and clinched a historic Treble after beating Inter Milan
It takes a special side to win the treble, and Pep Guardiola’s men have been phenomenal
It is a pleasure for the 1999 Manchester United side I played in to be ranked alongside them
Some of the challenges we had to deal with back then wouldn’t be allowed these days, but we had a few more close calls than this City side
On the flip side, City play with great flair and those players are protected by the officials. I feel we had a few more close calls in 1999 than City have done.
Our games against Arsenal and Juventus were epics that swung one way and then the other, whereas City steamrollered Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to reach the Champions League final.
We had a strong group, so you wouldn’t have written us off against anyone and, by the way, the same goes for the Liverpool team of the ’80s I grew up with.
They also have to be in the conversation of ‘greatest ever’.
I’d love to have played for Guardiola. Even now I’d like to be a fly on the wall and hear how he goes about his work. He’s taken City to the next level and won’t want to stop now.
He is due a rest, deservedly so, but in three weeks’ time he’ll be planning again. I love listening to his ideas.
