Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has suggested it would definitely be possible for his team or Liverpool to complete a Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble this season because it has been done before.
Manchester United in 1999 were the first and still only English club to complete it, seen as one of the ultimate feats in English football history, although Guardiola himself has experience of it in Spain after leading Barcelona to league, cup and Champions League titles in 2009.
With City top of the Premier League, preparing to face Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-finals and into the last eight of the Champions League against Atletico Madrid, attention is starting to turn towards potentially doing a treble of their own.
For Guardiola, the fact is has been done before is proof that it can be done again.
“If United did it, another team can do it,” he said at a press conferece on Friday.
“To break a record is because someone has done it. When it happens – I think it will - it's not easy, but you can do it,” he added.
The City boss has also suggested it is always a more likely possibility later in the season, when more games have been played and a treble is closer.
“In September or October it's more difficult,” he explained. “Two months left, yeah it can be done. But it happened once in a lifetime.”
Liverpool also remain in the hunt for a treble – or even an unprecedented quadruple. Having recently lifted the Carabao Cup, the Reds are now only one point behind City in the Premier League table.