Pep Guardiola is trying to do something at Man City that he hasn't done in 18 years

Manchester City are back in the hunt for Premier League titles and Pep Guardiola is chasing even more silverware.

Pep Guardiola is bidding for a 13th major league title in his managerial career this season. Unlucky for some, it might be that number 13 hits a little differently for the Catalan in his 18th season in management.

Guardiola has always had the barb thrown at him that he has won league titles he should be expected to win. At Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, he has often had the best squads and the most resources.

In no other industry are the best-in-class told they should drop down a level to prove it. For some social media critics, Guardiola's achievements will have a mark next to them until he wins the league with Brentford or drops into the National League for a season to pit his wits against Robbie Savage.

That overlooks the fact that Guardiola has managed Europe's elite precisely because he has proven himself to be one of the greatest managers of his generation and one of the best ever. He hasn't got lucky landing these jobs.

But this season has certainly felt a little different. City didn't go into the campaign as favourites. In fact, they were third favourites behind Liverpool and Arsenal with the bookmakers.

No Guardiola team will ever have been third favourites for a title before. At Bayern, he would have been expected to run away with the title every season, likewise at Barcelona after building that great team. Maybe his first season in Spain would have seen Real Madrid as favourites, although it would have been a two-horse race.

Other than that, expectations have always been high, except for this season. That's not to say that City were rank outsiders and nobody expected them to win the league, but for the first time, they were being written off more regularly.

A survey of 33 pundits on the BBC Sport website before the start of the season had five tipping City for the title - and four of them were former City players with long associations with the club, in Joe Hart, Michael Brown, Steph Houghton and Nedum Onuoha. Former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson was the only neutral to go with the Blues.

On Sky Sports, neither Jamie Carragher nor Gary Neville went for City to win the title. A survey of 10 pundits on the Premier League website saw nobody go for Guardiola's side to win the title. All 10 picked Liverpool.

You're getting the picture by now. It might look obvious now that Erling Haaland can't stop scoring and City lie within four points of Arsenal, but back in August, it was rare to find anybody who expected City to win the league. After they lost two of their first three games, they were written off entirely.

But here we are in mid-November, and City are Arsenal's premier rivals. According to the bookmakers, City are still second favourites, with the Gunners odds-on to end their long wait for the Premier League title.

That won't bother Guardiola, but it might inspire him. In his 18 years in management, it is fair to say that he has never been in charge of a team that was written off and forgotten about to the extent that this group was.

It will stick in the craw of some to say that City are outsiders in this title race and have been from day one, but that is the reality. This is a new experience for Guardiola and if he wins the title this season, maybe that will be enough to prove some of those foolish critics wrong.