Where do people think we sit in terms of club football and the top squads in the world?

[Chris in London]

See Bayern still a bit ahead of us. Not really in terms of players, but they got Pep. If he should leave them next summer, I can imagine they will have a slump, losing the best coach and players like Ribery, Robben and Lahm.

I'd agree Bayern are ahead of us ATM, but (to use a driving analogy) they may be half a mile ahead of us, but they're doing 70 and we're doing 85. Two seasons ago, we all saw the gulf when they played us at our place. (same as we saw the gulf when we played Barca in February). I'd saw we've improved a lot more in the intervening two years than Bayern have.

 

[Mightor]

For me this is a very difficult thing. First, I admit I can't view our club in a very realistic fashion. I'll always put them ahead.

Another reason I have difficulty is that when we have played Bayern and Barca the last couple years, I think we are pretty much on part with Bayern. The Barca matches show just how different they play than the PL sides. You touch any of their attacking players and they go down. There is never an attempt by them to stay up and press forward. What has hurt us a lot is that at the start of the matches we rack up a ton of fouls and then our team has a hard time surviving without yellow cards flying left and right. I realize it is part of their style, so from that end, I understand, however part of our style is to be physical. For some reason the Champions League officials always seem to go against physicality. When PL officials are used for the other matches, they let them play a lot more. I'd like to see the records of the various leagues with PL officials versus their records with other officials. It may show that there is a difference. One thing that I like when I watch Real play is that they aren't a bunch of divers. So while I do think that I would rate them above ours mainly due to results and that they have a team filled with world class players, I do think it would be a very entertaining matchup.

The draw is always something we will have to fight through. With any luck this year, we win our group and won't have to face PSG, Real, Barca, or Bayern in the knockout stages. Then we have advanced to a point that our team should be given a better result. If we finish 2nd in group, we are going to face the same things we have the past two years. Does anybody really think that Juve was the 2nd best team in Europe last year? I don't. But they did what they had to do in order to make the finals.

Ronaldo and Bale dive enough for their entire team. Pepe will take a dive right after he assaults an opposition player (or sometimes his own), and he'll get away with both!

That said, you're right that there's a greater crackdown on physical play in the Champions League and we can't get away with as much as we do in the Premier League.

 

[Aytoun]

I like Brian Cloughs, we are maybe not the best but we are in the top one.

 

[MCFC1993]

Please name 10 teams that are ahead of us. I assure you, you won't be able too.

I'm inclined to agree with him as we haven't performed in Europe, on paper top 5 easily...games aren't won on paper.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, PSG, Juventus (1 great season), Dortmund (terrible season last year) have all been better in Europe recently. Add to that there are other clubs in Europe that have had better European Campaigns, like Monaco last year.

I would personally have us level with Chelsea, Atletico and PSG but behind Real, Barca and Bayern. Its time to prove it on the pitch, as long as we avoid Barca in the knockout rounds, I have a good feeling about our European Campaign this year.

 

[Dax777]

Tier 1: Barca, Bayern, Real Madrid
Tier 2: City, Chelsea, Athletico, PSG, Juventuss
Tier 3: Valencia, Arsenal, Dortmund,

We are closer to the tier 3 guys than tier 1 though. But I believe we and PSG might move closer to the tier 1 guys this season.

 

[ROCKET80]

I believe this will be our coming of age season in Europe, this will be down to the way we are now setup. We can all see the impact Sterling has had and the benefits to the change in formation, throw KDB in the mix and we're a match for anyone.

Having Silva and Nasri both playing out wide and cutting in has been our biggest tactical blunder in Europe. Press us and we fell apart as Silva, Nasri and Yaya were pretty much on top of each other. Now we're harder to defend against, pressing us wont work as it once did as now we have pace in behind and we wont spend the 90mins passing sideways at the edge if the box in-front of an organised defensive unit.

 

[tonea2003]

I'm inclined to agree with him as we haven't performed in Europe, on paper top 5 easily...games aren't won on paper.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, PSG, Juventus (1 great season), Dortmund (terrible season last year) have all been better in Europe recently. Add to that there are other clubs in Europe that have had better European Campaigns, like Monaco last year.

I would personally have us level with Chelsea, Atletico and PSG but behind Real, Barca and Bayern. Its time to prove it on the pitch, as long as we avoid Barca in the knockout rounds, I have a good feeling about our European Campaign this year.

that was my whole point, on paper we are undoubtedly top table, but over the seasons we have been in the competition there been more than 10 teams better than us, it will change hopefully starting with this season

 

[moz]

On paper were certainly top 10 ...........in reality still also rans in europe, until that changes (hopefully this year) we cannot regard ourselves as top 5 or even close to the world elite

 

[Manchester33]

I'm inclined to agree with him as we haven't performed in Europe, on paper top 5 easily...games aren't won on paper.

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, PSG, Juventus (1 great season), Dortmund (terrible season last year) have all been better in Europe recently. Add to that there are other clubs in Europe that have had better European Campaigns, like Monaco last year.

I would personally have us level with Chelsea, Atletico and PSG but behind Real, Barca and Bayern. Its time to prove it on the pitch, as long as we avoid Barca in the knockout rounds, I have a good feeling about our European Campaign this year.

Right, here's my opinion on the 9 clubs you mention above.

Barca - undoubtedly the best team in the world.
Real - still ahead of us, but other than Ronaldo I don't see their squad being that much better than us, they are definitely in decline.
Munich - still ahead of us, they just have more experience in big games, we'll catch them soon enough.
Chelsea - they were ahead of us last year by quite a distance, but a poor transfer window for them has shown, we dominated them 3-0, it could have been 5/6 ahead at half time!
Athletico - they have some good technical players and arguably the best manager in the world (despite playing boring football), but they aren't the team they were 2 years ago, to many good players have left - I think we're ahead of them.
Chelsea - they got mentioned twice in your list
PSG - Really good team, I'd say they are 'just' ahead of us because they don't have any domestic competition.
Juventus - absolutely no chance are they ahead of us now. last season, maybe, but they've lost 3 of their 4 best players and domestic competition has improved.
Dortmund - No Klopp, no champions league football, no Lewandowski - they are no where near the Dortmund of 2013 and arguing they're ahead of us is laughable, there are at least 4 teams ahead of them in Germany alone!


I think a lot of City fans forget that in the last 2 seasons we've been in a group with Bayern and faced Barca in the round of 16. Juventus last year had a group of Athletico, Olympiakos and Malmo (they finished second), they beat the poorest Dortmund team we've seen in half a decade to reach the quarters, where they beat a Monaco side that finished 12 points behind PSG - they qualified for the final after having the game of their lives vs Madrid - then played Barca in the final and got outclassed on every front - and people think they had some incredible team that was miles ahead of ours etc - they didn't they just got lucky one season.

 

[Bruun]

Top 3/4.

Real and Bayern are of course number 1 and 2.

But this season with Barca under the transfer-ban, i see us competing with them. A few of their main stars are aging players by now, and they haven't really got the quality consistantly over the pitch.