No. That team had a very clear future but also a very clear past, on the back of two pretty stale Pellegrini seasons. But it also had an exciting manager with a fresh backroom staff, a new playstyle England had not seen before that made us the best team in the lague between the two boxes, and a fantastic run-in that led us into a summer where it was pretty obvious were we needed to strengthen.
Now we have a awful, imbalanced squad where we will likely only get rid of a few of the old guard when they all should be going. A manager that seems to have run out of ideas, the same assistant manager we have had for years despite the play on the pitch declining massively. As a club we have comitted to Haaland (who is a superstar and great at what he does) for the next 10 years, but we have refused to play to his strenghts since he came here, and unless that changes we are really just going to have a poacher that scores a lot of goals in a declining team that does not suit him. Another young key player in Foden looks like he has forgotten how to play football on the top-level. If it were only the oldies in the squad that were the issue maybe our problems wouldn't be that bad.
16/17 felt like the start of a transition, were we could identify and rectify the last remaining pieces of the puzzle as the season went on.
This season has been like a tidal wave of issues that the club should have seen coming, but also a bunch of issues spawned out of the blue. Maybe we can rise from it already next season even if it ends up in Europa League. But anyone that see any kind of direction or progress amongst the waves are delusional. It has been the blind leading the blind all season