I agree but I think Pep should shoulder a lot of the blame.I feel the same as i have always done towards this team. They are a great set of players but i think they, Pep , coaches and fans are struggling to take this season seriously. For me football since March has been artificial and i'm not to bothered about it at the moment. I'd also say the introduction of VAR has made it a bit of a lottery
There isnt one. I honestly wasnt over chuffed when pap re-signed for 2 more years. After last season i felt the club needed a proper refresh and a step away from the barca boysFeels like limbo.
The media bemoan the Rags style of play, that they need an identity, but whats ours?
I feel the same as i have always done towards this team. They are a great set of players but i think they, Pep , coaches and fans are struggling to take this season seriously. For me football since March has been artificial and i'm not to bothered about it at the moment. I'd also say the introduction of VAR has made it a bit of a lottery
I agree but I think Pep should shoulder a lot of the blame.
He moans he needs 5 subs but seems to struggle making 3 at times.
He seems to rotate unessicarily when he could pick a more stable side and use his subs more astutely.
But the biggest issue for me is we seem to have a percentage of "Star" players who seem untouchable and play regardless of current form i.e. Sterling, whilst at the same time Pep says certain players are whilst training are not justifying selection i.e. Laporte.
I honestly think Pep is not getting the best out of the squad we have atm and that is just as worrying as the days when we had dogshit squads.
We have improved since Mojo came back into the side.Lol and loler
At least you used the word ‘astutely’ to make your post sound a little more intelligent though, whp :)
Well said. I think this could become our best team yet and Pep has been steadily building it for 12 months with defence at its heart. I also think it is the hardest-working team I have ever seen in this country. Even when things weren't clicking at the start of this crazy Covid season you could not complain about a lack of effort. We have technically brilliant players in most positions but no team is capable of outworking us. This is what Pep has brought with his relentless drive.hope some folks are feeling a bit more positive about the squad now
I agree with much of this but in terms of us getting ripped off, recently it’s been more like the players have not performed as expected having demonstrated the right qualities at their previous clubs, Mahrez, Mendy to name but a few.. We have also dodged a few too by refusing to pay the asking price, Sanchez, (Maguire the Greek Mezzi)Spurs level players for £60million. thats our squad basically. The use of our resources has been incredibly poor and now certain players are gone its showing. We should be constantly be going for the best.
Sorry to say but dippers have spent 400m to construct their current squad, while we have more than billion euros. This is according to CIES, which further confirms our wastefulness in the market.
City constantly get ripped off for players.
I feel we've changed our set up to adapt to how the season is currently. The high octane, high energy press and attack we normally have won't last this season. The players will burn out by January if we kept that up, also I don't think we have the squad capable of playing that way just yet. Instead we've become a defensive side at the moment. But we are still in the title race despite the doom & gloom that's around every time we don't win a game.
Defensively we have fixed that, so the defence isn't a worry anymore, which is a credit to Dias, Stones etc.
It's the attack that's the concern. Jesus works his ass off, but he's not getting into dangerous positions. And when he does his touch fails him or he tries to much. Sterling doesn't look like himself or he isn't getting into the right positions, Mahrez is hit & miss, always will be, Bernardo and Foden aren't getting used enough I feel to get goals and the best out of them. Without one of those two next to Kev, to much is left to Kev to do. Torres looks a player but is young and needs time to develop.
I'm more interested in where we sit at the end of December then I'll judge properly. I'm not overly excited, nor am I to disappointed so far this season.
A 6/10 for me so far, but the defence being fixed was the biggest issue coming into the season, the goals will come if we keep keeping clean sheets and be solid at the back.
Two sensible posts in the first ten pages.We weren't great in 2012/13 but then we were in 2013/14. We weren't great in 2014/15, 2015/16, or 2016/17, but then we were in 2017/18 and 2018/19.
It's not about the form, it's about the personnel. In the past decade we've had players that at times looked like they were no longer cut out for it, only to go on and play key roles in future successes, and vice versa importantly.
After 2016/17 it only took a couple of touches to the squad for us to become elite. A lot of the players people felt apathy towards all of a sudden became class. It's not that they magically just became good either; they just needed the platform.
This past seasons and a bit has been the reverse. It's still the same players, they still have the same quality. It's just not translated too well to success, but it's not like they're duds either.
And besides, how bad are we really? We got 81 points last season which is more than any previous City side that has failed to win the league has got. And we were comfortably ahead of 3rd. We scored over 100 goals and our keeper won the golden glove. We won a trophy, made another QF and a semi-final.
This season started a bit shakily, and the effects of fixture congestion and no preseason have hurt our game more than most teams and more than most realise. And yet we've comfortably topped our CL group, become defensively solid (we are joint top of the clean sheets table and we are getting them quickly, plus we currently have the 2nd best defence in the league), and we're not exactly too far off of the pace at the top. And this is with us losing our unique playmaker in Silva. And we also had no strikers for a while, and now we have one back but the other is a rather good player to be missing too.
It might not happen, but I think this crop of players easily has it in them to be very successful. Which is why even if you're disappointed with how things are, I don't think it's worth being apathetic or whatever towards the players.
The team and club seem to be doing a lot better now, perhaps the passing of Colin Bell has reminded them of how fleeting their careers are? Who knowsI agree but I think Pep should shoulder a lot of the blame.
He moans he needs 5 subs but seems to struggle making 3 at times.
He seems to rotate unessicarily when he could pick a more stable side and use his subs more astutely.
But the biggest issue for me is we seem to have a percentage of "Star" players who seem untouchable and play regardless of current form i.e. Sterling, whilst at the same time Pep says certain players are whilst training are not justifying selection i.e. Laporte.
I honestly think Pep is not getting the best out of the squad we have atm and that is just as worrying as the days when we had dogshit squads.
Just imagine god forbid Dias gets a bad injury , OK we have a very rusty Laporte & even Ake but that would be the end of this Season's challenge imo because we have once again left a flaming great hole in the balance of the side by relying on an ageing injured Aguero & the Jesus 'prospect' who really has not progressed in 4 years
Have you seen our GD?Regardless of what happens this season, I think we could be looking at an all time vintage side next year, much like the centurion/treble side. This team is so young, and players who looked out of place last year are starting to look up for it and the team look ready to fight for one another (it seems we have Dias to thank for much of that). But fucking hell we need a striker.
Absolute shite. We've got FOUR top class centre backs now which is the thing that the "experts" are missing. We could lose one for the whole season and not be significantly weaker. Whilst I agree we need to replace Aguero in the summer, Jesus is a great second striker and adds things to the team that Aguero can't: playing with his back to goal, pulling defenders all over the place, opening holes for the midfielders to run into. Your ridiculously paranoid post has a flipside: this squad does need a left back and a striker. Which means it can get even better.Just imagine god forbid Dias gets a bad injury , OK we have a very rusty Laporte & even Ake but that would be the end of this Season's challenge imo because we have once again left a flaming great hole in the balance of the side by relying on an ageing injured Aguero & the Jesus 'prospect' who really has not progressed in 4 years