Erik ten Hag has proved with two players he can do for Manchester United what Guardiola has done for Man City

Manchester United have indisputably made progress this season, but when their staff and players sat down to watch the Champions League semi-final across town on Wednesday night, it might not have felt like it.

Erik ten Hag's team have won a trophy, are in another cup final and should return to the Champions League. But the ultimate goal is to win the league and to do that they need to usurp Pep Guardiola's Manchester City. Good luck with that.

City's 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid in the second leg of their semi-final is probably the statement performance in European football this season. They are two games from the Treble and United are the most likely side to stop them from matching the feats of 1999 now, when they meet in the FA Cup final at Wembley on June 3.

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Anything can happen in a one-off game in a cup final - although it feels like these two sides are going in different directions as the season ends - but matching that level of performance for an entire season is another challenge altogether.

It's not impossible of course. Arsenal have risen from sixth to challenge City for 35 games this season and even if Guardiola's team win their final three games of the season, they will win the title with 94 points, which is one more than last season but less than it took to claim top spot between 2017/18 and 2019/20.

But it also feels like City have been searching for something this season, a formula to continue to play the kind of football Guardiola demands while incorporating Erling Haaland. It's fair to say they've found it now.

So if we're not expecting City to regress any time, then United need to find a way to hit 95 points to at least