‘It’s great experience to win the most difficult league in the world’

Thrown into the air by his jubilant Manchester City players, Manuel Pellegrini was a league winner at last in Europe with the skeptics silenced. ‘It’s a great experience,’ Pellegrini said after Sunday’s title-clinching 2-0 win over West Ham. ‘It’s not easy to come to the Premier League - the most difficult league in the world.’ Lifting the trophy on Sunday was a victory for dignity over divisiveness for the composed Chilean, and his brand of attractive, expansive football.  ‘He wanted us to play attacking, and we’ve scored a lot of goals this year as well as being tight at the back,’ midfielder James Milner said. ‘Players adapted, which isn’t easy.’

It’s never easy adapting to English management either, but Pellegrini is the first manager from outside of Europe to win the country’s top division.

What must the City fans who greeted Pellegrini’s appointment with such abuse a year ago be thinking now? ‘You can stick Manuel Pellegrini,’ was the expletive-free section of the chant that reverberated around Wembley Stadium at the FA Cup final exactly a year ago after it leaked before the Wigan humiliation that Mancini was to be replaced.