The Title Race - 2023/24

[supercity88]

Arsenal have good young players and may become a more serious threat. Think Arteta has overused the forwards, though, and they have lost form. Martinelli and especially Saka have played too many minutes. Let's hope they don't click in the 2nd half of the season, their game vs Liverpool aside.

I can't see Arsenal ever challenging under Arteta in all honesty. We'll see.

I always felt Liverpool would be the bigger threat this season.

And as I said at the start of the week, I think we'll see a different level from City on our return from the winter break. Maybe not instantly, but for Pep to have two weeks to work on tactics with the players - I'd be stunned if he doesn't transform the team into a winning machine again.

 

[alexmcity]

I can't see Arsenal ever challenging under Arteta in all honesty. We'll see.

I always felt Liverpool would be the bigger threat this season.

And as I said at the start of the week, I think we'll see a different level from City on our return from the winter break. Maybe not instantly, but for Pep to have two weeks to work on tactics with the players - I'd be stunned if he doesn't transform the team into a winning machine again.

I think/hope you are right about Arteta. I tend to agree, but wonder whether they can reverse their fortune and have a stronger 2nd half of the season. Not likely, but who knows.. The recency bias may distort the picture somewhat.

I expect improvement from City, too. What's more, I think that a front 6 of Rodri, KDB, Foden, Bernardo, Doku/Grealish and Haaland has the potential to be truly extraordinary. Fingers crossed.

 

[Rammy Blue]

I can't see Arsenal ever challenging under Arteta in all honesty. We'll see.

I always felt Liverpool would be the bigger threat this season.

And as I said at the start of the week, I think we'll see a different level from City on our return from the winter break. Maybe not instantly, but for Pep to have two weeks to work on tactics with the players - I'd be stunned if he doesn't transform the team into a winning machine again.

I agree completely, they haven’t got the mental fortitude and that flows down from the manager, they aren’t our biggest threat.

Personally as well, as much as I hope they have the losing run sooner rather than later, I don’t actually rate the scousers as high as most either, and think they will have a bad spell soon.

 

[Coatigan]

Not good enough to win because they bottled it! Leicester weren't good enough to win the title but they had the mental strength and ability to go and get the job done. We got fewer points in the second half of last season than the first half, so that shows just how much they fell off the cliff. When we were down to the bare bones in 2021/22 our players stepped up and saw us over the line. There can always be excuses or mitigation, but people have to step up.

Leicester only needed to beat 71 points that year to win it. Arsenal needed 90 mate. Nothing at all to do with 'mental strength', just the level of the whole season and the opposition. You might as well go argue Leicester only won it because Spurs 'bottled it', which would be as unfair imo as your arguement is to us. We won the title. Arsenal didn't lose it.

 

[KingGeorge]

I can't see Arsenal ever challenging under Arteta in all honesty. We'll see.

I always felt Liverpool would be the bigger threat this season.

And as I said at the start of the week, I think we'll see a different level from City on our return from the winter break. Maybe not instantly, but for Pep to have two weeks to work on tactics with the players - I'd be stunned if he doesn't transform the team into a winning machine again.

Were you one of the posters who predicted Liverpool would be our main challenger in late September? I know there were a few guys that were adamant Liverpool would be our chief challenger at the time.

I can't remember the handles of the guys who posted that at the time, but kudos to the folks that did as they are looking more and more right with each passing day.

 

[chris85mcfc]

Were you one of the posters who predicted Liverpool would be our main challenger in late September? I know there were a few guys that were adamant Liverpool would be our chief challenger at the time.

I can't remember the handles of the guys who posted that at the time, but kudos to the folks that did as they are looking more and more right with each passing day.

Just having a quick scan back through my posts from that time, and I have a few mentioning Liverpool as our real threat.

Having said that, I also said Arsenal would be out of the race by Christmas which looks a bit hasty!

I feel even more confident now that we will win it, and that we'll finish above Liverpool by a comfortable margin (4+ points).

Peps got a couple of weeks now to really nail our strategy for the next few months, and coupled with our big hitters coming back from injury, I can't see anything other than us hitting top stride going into February.

 

[alexmcity]

Just having a quick scan back through my posts from that time, and I have a few mentioning Liverpool as our real threat.

Having said that, I also said Arsenal would be out of the race by Christmas which looks a bit hasty!

I feel even more confident now that we will win it, and that we'll finish above Liverpool by a comfortable margin (4+ points).

Peps got a couple of weeks now to really nail our strategy for the next few months, and coupled with our big hitters coming back from injury, I can't see anything other than us hitting top stride going into February.

I don't feel confident about your optimistic predictions. You were expecting record point differences, etc.

My prediction is that IF we win, it won't be by more than 1-2 pts. GD may play a role, too. It will be close.

 

[chris85mcfc]

I don't feel confident about your optimistic predictions. You were expecting record point differences, etc.

My prediction is that IF we win, it won't be by more than 1-2 pts. GD may play a role, too. It will be close.

I'm an optimistic person on the whole, and I've seen us win the league the last 3 years beating better teams than this Liverpool one.

I'll put my neck on the line and say that I think we'll be top of the league when we go to Anfield.

 

[KingGeorge]

I'm an optimistic person on the whole, and I've seen us win the league the last 3 years beating better teams than this Liverpool one.

I'll put my neck on the line and say that I think we'll be top of the league when we go to Anfield.

We have beaten teams better than this Liverpool team for sure, but we were also a better team ourselves.

We were on 45 points after 19 games last year. Arsenal falling off the pace threw us a lifeline coupled with Liverpool not running way. I guess we will see if we take advantage. If we can get by Newcastle the schedule does set up favorably.

 

[waspish]

We don't beat Newcastle away it be hard because we have to go to Anfield and spurs which we got zero points from last season!

 

[chris85mcfc]

We have beaten teams better than this Liverpool team for sure, but we were also a better team ourselves.

We were on 45 points after 19 games last year. Arsenal falling off the pace threw us a lifeline coupled with Liverpool not running way. I guess we will see if we take advantage. If we can get by Newcastle the schedule does set up favorably.

You could argue we've literally thrown away 8 points against Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and Palace; like literally thrown away.

We played very well in all of those games and then had uncharacteristic moments of madness.

Let's hope we don't see many repeats of that in the 2nd half of the season.

 

[KingGeorge]

You could argue we've literally thrown away 8 points against Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and Palace; like literally thrown away.

We played very well in all of those games and then had uncharacteristic moments of madness.

Let's hope we don't see many repeats of that in the 2nd half of the season.

Honest to God I hope we don't lose the league by two or fewer points because that Palace game will be haunt me forever. Hopefully we win it, and we can just look back and laugh at the points we dropped.

 

[KingGeorge]

We don't beat Newcastle away it be hard because we have to go to Anfield and spurs which we got zero points from last season!

We need to beat Newcastle and go a mini run…I do think we can get points at Anfield

 

[waspish]

Honest to God I hope we don't lose the league by two or fewer points because that Palace game will be haunt me forever. Hopefully we win it, and we can just look back and laugh at the points we dropped.

Sooner or later at the crunch end of season game we may not come out on top for the first time ever! I'll be gutted but that's football we won the last day of the season 4/5 times already

 

[supercity88]

Leicester only needed to beat 71 points that year to win it. Arsenal needed 90 mate. Nothing at all to do with 'mental strength', just the level of the whole season and the opposition. You might as well go argue Leicester only won it because Spurs 'bottled it', which would be as unfair imo as your arguement is to us. We won the title. Arsenal didn't lose it.

Going into their 30th game of the season they had 72pts, so they needed 18pts from their final 9 games with one against us. They'd averaged 2.4pts per game up to that point and managed 12pts from their final 9 or 1.3pts per game. We'll agree to disagree but I see that as a mental bottling when the stakes were raised. Consecutive draws from 2-0 up form part of my opinion.

Ultimately, we won it so I'm happy it happened whatever you want to call it. And this season they don't look to be any better.

As for Liverpool, they don't drop many points at home and away from home seem to be a much more robust side this season. Winning at Newcastle with 10 men for an hour. Only losing to Spurs in the 96th minute despite having 9 men for almost 30 minutes... there's a resilience there and I don't believe they'll fall away in the same fashion.

The caveat is, they're not setting an alarming pace. We've dropped so many points yet would be 2pts behind with our game in hand. So we've got an excellent chance of winning it again if we hit the heights we'd expect to. I don't believe they could cope with the pace if we did. Beating Newcastle is vital and then Pep can work his magic over in Abu Dhabi. For squad bonding, mental focus it's an excellent opportunity for us. And for Pep he can spend hours on the tactics and systems he wants to implement which is something that shouldn't be underestimated.

 

[Coatigan]

Going into their 30th game of the season they had 72pts, so they needed 18pts from their final 9 games with one against us. They'd averaged 2.4pts per game up to that point and managed 12pts from their final 9 or 1.3pts per game. We'll agree to disagree but I see that as a mental bottling when the stakes were raised. Consecutive draws from 2-0 up form part of my opinion.

Ultimately, we won it so I'm happy it happened whatever you want to call it. And this season they don't look to be any better.

As for Liverpool, they don't drop many points at home and away from home seem to be a much more robust side this season. Winning at Newcastle with 10 men for an hour. Only losing to Spurs in the 96th minute despite having 9 men for almost 30 minutes... there's a resilience there and I don't believe they'll fall away in the same fashion.

The caveat is, they're not setting an alarming pace. We've dropped so many points yet would be 2pts behind with our game in hand. So we've got an excellent chance of winning it again if we hit the heights we'd expect to. I don't believe they could cope with the pace if we did. Beating Newcastle is vital and then Pep can work his magic over in Abu Dhabi. For squad bonding, mental focus it's an excellent opportunity for us. And for Pep he can spend hours on the tactics and systems he wants to implement which is something that shouldn't be underestimated.

We'll continue to disagree on last season.

I agree entirely on the next two paragraphs though. Bring it on, I'm in!

 

[Coatigan]

Going into their 30th game of the season they had 72pts, so they needed 18pts from their final 9 games with one against us. They'd averaged 2.4pts per game up to that point and managed 12pts from their final 9 or 1.3pts per game. We'll agree to disagree but I see that as a mental bottling when the stakes were raised. Consecutive draws from 2-0 up form part of my opinion.

Ultimately, we won it so I'm happy it happened whatever you want to call it. And this season they don't look to be any better.

As for Liverpool, they don't drop many points at home and away from home seem to be a much more robust side this season. Winning at Newcastle with 10 men for an hour. Only losing to Spurs in the 96th minute despite having 9 men for almost 30 minutes... there's a resilience there and I don't believe they'll fall away in the same fashion.

The caveat is, they're not setting an alarming pace. We've dropped so many points yet would be 2pts behind with our game in hand. So we've got an excellent chance of winning it again if we hit the heights we'd expect to. I don't believe they could cope with the pace if we did. Beating Newcastle is vital and then Pep can work his magic over in Abu Dhabi. For squad bonding, mental focus it's an excellent opportunity for us. And for Pep he can spend hours on the tactics and systems he wants to implement which is something that shouldn't be underestimated.

Not being facetious here btw, but do humour me. When Aston Villa were 2-0 up against us on the final day in the 60 something'th minute, did They bottle it? Did we only win that title because AV bottled it? Or did the overwhelming difference in quality between them and us finally burst through?

Just trying to establish, where this threshold of 'mental strength/weakness' is, vs being the better/inferior side on the whole.

 

[Inca Roads Bert]

Semantics bollocks are getting boring.
Half full/empty glasses and whatnot.
We won the titles, unquestionably. And against PiGMOL and the media.
Also the red jessies bottled it from advantage positions having the bestest ever players ever in every position that meant more ;) Tell this to those stinking cunts to rattle them. No problem.
And tell ourselves we've won it with relentless fight and Pep's vision and mentality.

 

[KingGeorge]

With De Bruyne back, Man City have title rivals shaking

With Man City trailing Liverpool by five points in the Premier League, Kevin De Bruyne's return to fitness is a seismic moment in the title race.

www.espn.com

Nice piece on the title run from ESPN

 

[supercity88]

Not being facetious here btw, but do humour me. When Aston Villa were 2-0 up against us on the final day in the 60 something'th minute, did They bottle it? Did we only win that title because AV bottled it? Or did the overwhelming difference in quality between them and us finally burst through?

Just trying to establish, where this threshold of 'mental strength/weakness' is, vs being the better/inferior side on the whole.

I would prefer to say let's agree to disagree!

But I would say that considering they had 72pts with 9 games left and only picked up 12....they bottled it. When the pressure is on and stakes are high that's when mental strength is tested. They drew with West Ham and Southampton and lost to Brighton and Forest. Their results fell off a cliff, with Saliba being their only valid mitigation but it was more than that. We were an easy excuse for them to temper expectations. From the position they were in they should have been at least pushing us closer than they did.

Villa had no pressure or expectation. Gerrard would have wanted them to win but the players wouldn't have cared. I would call it bottling it if performances dropped over a run of games when pressure was highest.