Is the 2022/2023 Manchester City team their best Premier League team in the last decade?

Pep Guardiola is considered one of the best managers in the game, and the Spaniard will make himself immortal if his side earns that treble.
Manchester United and Inter Milan have the chance to stop them from doing that, but it is hard to see Guardiola's side not beating the Italians in the final of the Champions League in the next few weeks.
However, it is how they have displaced Arsenal to win the Premier League this season that has been their most impressive achievement of the campaign, considering how the Gunners worked so hard to be champions throughout the season.
Mikel Arteta's side was supposed to compete for the top four, but the poor form of the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United made it easy for them to spend most of this season as league leaders.
Most of us were confident that Arsenal would win the league, and City were inconsistent until they switched gear this year, so it was easy for the Gunners to run away with the title.
However, the Citizens proved again that any side who wants to beat them to the title must be almost perfect.
City could end this season with 94 points if they win all their remaining matches, and Arsenal will not even get up to 90 points as the second team on the league table.
Still, some people consider this Manchester City team as one of the best in the EPL in the last decade.
Since Guardiola came to England, he has missed out on winning the league just twice, so it is understandable to consider this season one of City's best in the last decade.
Fans who have bought Manchester City tickets in the last few seasons have come to expect the best from their side in the Premier League.
In almost every campaign, the Manchester side is in the race and in the last six campaigns, they have either won it or come close, but where does this season's team rank among their best in the last decade?
Before the arrival of Pep Guardiola in England, the standard for winning the Premier League was not so high, so with less than 90 points, clubs could comfortably be champions in the top flight.
In the 2013/2014 season, City faced a serious challenge from Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers, but Manuel Pellegrini's side emerged champions with 86 points, while Liverpool had 84.
This City team was one of the best we had seen because they had to see off a resilient Liverpool side to become champions.
However, their cause was helped by that famous Steven Gerrard slip against Chelsea and Liverpool's crumble at Crystal Palace.
In Guardiola's first season, City attempted to play a different type of football as the Spaniard brought in his game plan from Spain and Germany.
Most fans mocked him for attempting to play tiki-taka in a very tough league like the Premier League, and there were more doubters than believers in the competition.
Some fans have long held a belief that without Lionel Messi, Pep cannot win certain trophies, so he was expected to struggle in England.
This first campaign seems to confirm this as his side finished third on the league table with 78 points, far less than Antonio Conte's Chelsea, who won the league with 93 points.
One thing people may not acknowledge about this City team is that it had many underachievers and certainly was not prepared to play as a Pep team does.
That summer, the Spaniard made some incredible signings and offloaded many of the deadwood he met at the club to prepare his side for the next campaign.
He still had doubters who did not think he could win the league playing the only way he knew how to, which has brought him success in La Liga and the Bundesliga.
Prior to the 2017/2018 season, there was still so much doubt about what Pep could do in England as a manager, and most of the debaters believed the Spaniard would struggle until he left the EPL.
The ex-Barcelona boss worked on his squad that summer, most notably replacing almost all of his full-backs with Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy moving to the club.
Bernardo Silva and Danilo also moved to the Etihad at the start of that campaign as Pep sought to finally end his wait for the league crown.
That season's title race was an exciting one as Jose Mourinho was the manager of Manchester United and was in his second season at the club, just like Pep.
However, Guardiola's men were unstoppable as they broke record after record on their way to winning the league.
The Citizens finished that season with 100 league points, the highest any team has ever earned in the English top flight to date.
They also won the League Cup by defeating Arsenal, and we could now see that Guardiola had arrived, and most of his doubters began to question if they needed to hand the Spaniard more respect.
The Manchester City team of the 2017/2018 season seems like one of their best ever, but the 2018/2019 team probably deserves that honour.
When the season began, Liverpool had reached an important stage of their rebuild under Jurgen Klopp and were finalists in the Champions League in the previous season.
This was to continue in the league in 2018/2019 as Klopp's men pushed City to the limit until the end of the campaign.
Liverpool lost only one Premier League game all season, and it was against City. The Reds amassed 97 points, but City won the league on the final day of the season with 98 points.
This City team does not get the credit it deserves, but it was one of their best ever, and they saved Arsenal's invincible record by beating Liverpool.
After Liverpool won the 2019/2020 title, City was back as champions after the 2020/2021 campaign, and they won the league with 86 points.
This was one of the lowest margins they have used to secure the title in the last few seasons, and it could be attributed to Liverpool's poor form, as the Reds had been the team pushing them to break records in most of the previous seasons.
Pep's side also reached the final of the Champions League in this campaign, so we could say challenging for both trophies limited how they performed domestically.
Chelsea defeated them in the final of that European showpiece, but it was still a good season because they won the league.
In the 2021/2022 season, we witnessed another two-horse race in the Premier League, with Liverpool yet again delivering some fantastic football all season.
The Reds could have won four trophies, including the Premier League and pushed Manchester City until the final day of the season.
Once again, City showed remarkable resilience as they won the title with 93 points, while Liverpool finished the campaign with 92 points.
Chelsea finished third in the league that season but had almost 20 points less than the top two.
Considering the standard City has set over the years, it is hard to talk about that team, but defeating the Liverpool side to be crowned champions was one of the best achievements of the Guardiola era.
The 2022/2023 season will go down as one of the most interesting Premier League title races we have ever witnessed, but this team is by no means the best Manchester City Premier League team of the last decade.
That honour should be between the 2017/2018 and the 2018/2019 teams.