Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini is confident his title-winning team is better now that it was 12 months ago.
Pellegrini was delighted with an opening victory at Newcastle which came despite many of his World Cup stars having gone into the game short of match fitness.
And while he knows there will be stiff competition once again this season, he is certain City have grown during his time at the club.
He said: “It’s very difficult to compare each year. Maybe last year a lot of people doubted we could win the title because it was my first season here in the Premier League.
“Today, we have one year more working with the players and I think we have also a strong squad.
“But always in England in the Premier League, you have five or six teams that can win the title, so we need to have the same attitude as we had today, the hunger with which we have started the season, the same humility with which we played today in every game.
“I am sure this squad can fight, and we will see at the end of the season which titles we will win. I am very happy because I think it’s always important to start the season winning, especially when you have to play away at so difficult a stadium as St James’ – it’s always a difficult stadium for every team that comes here.
“Maybe in the second half we couldn’t have so much possession of the ball because seven of our 10 [outfield] players were not able to play 90 minutes at the same pace.
“But we were very concentrated, very well organised and we kept a clean sheet, and finally we decided the game with a second goal.”
Newcastle boss Alan Pardew remained upbeat, saying: “I honestly feel we have come up against individuals today who we are not going to see every week and thought we coped with it as well as we could.”