'99.9%' - Pep Guardiola gives emphatic answer on whether Man City can win Treble again as he references Man Utd & Sir Alex Ferguson failure in 2000

City are on an imperious run of form in all competitions, having won their last nine consecutive matches. They are closing in on Liverpool in the title race and look to be the strongest team left in the FA Cup and Champions League. Plus, Guardiola has a full squad available to him after the return of John Stones, Kevin De Bruyne and top scorer Erling Haaland. However, the manager is uneasy about talk in the media that his side could win another treble.

"Yeah, sixtuple and seventuple. This is a fairy tale, it's more complicated than that," Guardiola said in a press conference. "Try to beat Everton and we will see what happens. We have 99.99 [per cent] possibility that we are not going to win the treble because never, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have done it. If it was easy, another team - United in that time - would do it again."

"It’s not easy, not even winning at Brentford. What I like is the satisfaction when in Luton Town when we’re in trouble and we won and the celebration in the locker room, this is what I like in my team. Winning at Brentford when last season we couldn’t beat them. This satisfaction," Guardiola added. "Everything is so difficult in this business, what we done in the past doesn’t guarantee anything. You have to do all the things again every three days to stay there until the end. What I like is that we are still there."

City and Manchester United are the only English teams to have won the treble, although the Red Devils surrendered the chance to repeat the feat when they opted out of entering the FA Cup in 2000 in order to play in the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup.

Barcelona and Bayern Munich are the only teams to have done the treble twice, with Guardiola overseeing the Catalans' first clean sweep in 2009.

City host Everton in the Premier League on Saturday, when they will have the chance to temporarily leapfrog Liverpool at the top of the table. They will then turn their attentions to defending their Champions League crown as they visit Copenhagen on Tuesday.