Alan Brazil: Pep Guardiola and Brendan Rodgers are eyeing total domination

SCOTTISH football isn’t even considered a one-horse race in England.

It’s more like show jumping.

But the way Manchester City have pranced their way to the top of the Premier League has made the “neigh-sayers” in England look stupid.

Pep Guardiola’s side aren’t just ahead of the pack by a nose, they’re a good few lengths clear already.

And unless something drastic happens, I reckon they’ll end up winning the title by a few furlongs.

Then the challenge will be on for the other runners and riders to rest, rebuild and try to close the gap through the close season.

After all, this campaign already looks a lost cause for the division’s other big guns.

Whether City will earn the “Invincibles” tag – just as Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic did earlier this year – is less certain for me.

But Pep’s side are certainly “Incredibles”.

The problem the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool will have going forward is that City will be strengthening at the same time they are.

So it’s going to take an extra special feat of coaching – or spending – to get close to them even next season.

At that point, Guardiola’s side will be right on course for two in a row.

Things are different in Scotland, where Celtic’s long-term aim is to claim a record 10 titles on the trot.

If – though “when” is probably the better word – they claim the Premiership crown this season, it will be number seven in that sequence.

I’ve said before that I reckon Brendan Rodgers will be tempted to stick around to make history.

I reckon Pep will be feeling the same way.

It’s not that the Catalan coach will have his sights set on 10 in a row.

But the record number of consecutive titles in England currently only stands at three.

Four teams have reached that milestone – Huddersfield Town and Arsenal in the 1920s and ’30s, Liverpool in the ’80s, and Manchester United (twice) in the ’90s and early 2000s.

If Pep racks up two on the spin – and, as I’ve explained, I reckon it will be very difficult for anyone to stop him – his mind will start to spin in tandem with Brendan’s.

He has already won three consecutive titles with Barcelona (in 2009, 2010 and 2011) and Bayern Munich (in 2014, 2015 and 2016).

Two with City will set him up for a crack at a third, and after that, history beckons.

It’s no insult to suggest that to managers like Pep – and Brendan Rodgers – those things matter.

They have to, otherwise they wouldn’t have the kind of drive needed to succeed the way they do. And it just so happens that if City’s gaffer and his Hoops counterpart do decide they want to headline a chapter in their respective clubs’ history books, they will both achieve the domestic records required to do just that in 2021.

That’s when Celtic would clock up 10 in a row.

It’s also when four in a row would happen for Manchester City.

The numbers might be different, but they would tell the same story north and south of the border – one team dominating in historic fashion.

That would be when Scottish football’s English critics would have to wind their necks in.

Because City’s thoroughbred dominance, just like Celtic’s, will have made their argument fit for nowhere but the knacker’s yard.