Will we win the league this season?

oxopop said:
If we press with intent and stop that lateral me to you to me shite we will score plenty of goals. Sadly with our defence we will concede too many and for that reason I cannot see us winning the league.
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It's that lateral to me to you shite that causes our defence to be so bad because of the high line and space behind that results from it.

If we do press with intent and attack with speed then we won't need such a high line and our defence will be less vulnerable.
 
jacko74 said:
It's that lateral to me to you shite that causes our defence to be so bad because of the high line and space behind that results from it.

If we do press with intent and attack with speed then we won't need such a high line and our defence will be less vulnerable.
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oxopop said:
If we press with intent and stop that lateral me to you to me shite we will score plenty of goals. Sadly with our defence we will concede too many and for that reason I cannot see us winning the league.
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That defence is not bad, we just didn't a line of protection in front of the defence. A fit Rodri + Reijnders midfield would provide enough protection in front of the defence, The problem is if Pep would think that's too defensive or overly cautious.
 
The defence sort the defensive fragility out and we will be up there. If we don't sort that out top 4 battle.

Attack wins games. Defence wins titles.
 
Think we're a right back and top class wide player short.

Several of the current options aren't good enough.

Overall though, I don't think we should underestimate the difference Rodri will make to the team. We're basically adding the world's best player to our midfield.
 
Ric said:
Write us off at your peril. Liverpool are understandably favourites but I think we’ll be right up there.
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It depends for me. If I was forced to make a prediction, it would be 3rd.
Because the evidence available however skant suggests we haven't fixed the countering problem and that was the difference last year between winning the title and not.
But my more nuanced opinion is that we have no idea how this will shake out. I'm not particularly convinced on Gyokeres as the solution for Arsenal and his only great seasons have come in either the Championship or the Portuguese league. There's a question mark there.
Liverpool are a huge threat but I also would like to see Slot when he has to cope with the pressure of that day to day, week to week, point for point style run in that Klopp and Pep had. Feel like you get to see what people are really made of in those circumstances. But they've signed well. Not well enough I'd argue, while its fine giving VVD another couple of years, when players his age drop then they absolutely drop off a Walker sized cliff and go from the best in the world to struggling in about 3 months. They do need a Guehi imo. And as distasteful as it is, with Jota dying then they're short up top now and will need to go to market.
Chelsea will be a huge threat. Their player signing addiction isn't going away and eventually all the parts will add up to something. @BillyShears said the other day that keeping Lavia fit is going to determine their season and I agree that they need more control.

City have question marks around the squad. Firstly, we have about 31 players all in and it wasnt that many weeks ago that our manager said he'd quit if they dont get it down to 23ish. Even if people rate Nunes as a fullback then he isn't going to play 60 games and Rico seems to be preferred in midfield. I believe Pep put Akanji there for the same reason that he admitted he went with a strikerless system in the season where we failed to buy Kane - to make a point to the board.
I presume our backup left back is now Gvardiol with one of the CBs taking his place rather than O'Reilly.
Doku and Savinho are still wide players with not enough output. In fact the whole of City are players with not enough output. Great teams like us a few season back have goals all over the pitch. Even defenders who can grab a couple of cheeky goals to make the difference. 80% of our goal output goes through one person. This has to change, you cant have a single point of failure. Marmoush helps a lot but we need the new boys to contribute and the other talented players we have to shoot more.

When I look at this City squad, I see a lot of blurriness. Players not really fitting in properly, no clear roles for some. There needs to be work done before September to focus it.

So theres the bad points.

Here's the good points. Last season City completely forgot how to play football for 3 months and scraped wins after that and we finished 13 points behind the Champions. 13 points is nothing in the scheme of things. Its a lucky deflection and a few bad ref decisions. And we didn’t do this because we were the third best team in the country, at times we were barely the third best team in Manchester behind Maine Road FC and the Dog and Duck, but because the individual talented and the mentality of the squad dragged us there. City have always played their best when slightly pissed off. Whether that be games where we had major title points on the line and went 1-0 down to where we famously went unbeaten for the entire rest of the season when the charges were announced. That's mentality. And with ours then we'll always be in with a shout.

But intangibles are intangible and relying on them over the cold hard facts in front of you is the type of arrogant exceptionalist wankery that has helped cause the downfall of (THIS IS) Man United.

I've mentioned this a billion times before but the way that I measure the quality of a squad is this - I ask if we were to sell the player today, who would their next club be? Ideally you want the answer to consist of Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich (as a hypothetical, not a "they're broke" reality). Walker was Burnley so thats his level and he needed to go. Dias would be on the radar of those 3 immediately so we should keep him. Rodri same, Haaland same, etc. Laporta would personally deive to Manchester and fellate Khaldoon on the pitch at HT to sign Foden. Nunes though? If we were to put him up for sale then who is interested? A Villa or Spurs perhaps? Not Madrid. So he needs replacing medium term. What about Ortega? I reckon those 3 would like him as a backup so he stays.
What's John Stones next club? Gundogan? Akanji? Its going to be closer to a Burnley than a Bayern.

The best way to win a football match is to have the best players working under the best manager. I think we have the best manager in history. But a lot of our squad are in that "going to West Ham next" type of scenario and that means, despite their incredible contributions to us, its basically an admission that they aren't to the standard any more.

The squads too fuzzy at the moment, fat and bloated and tired. There's no way for to predict whether we'll finish 1st or 4th because the squad has the potential at the moment to finish anywhere as its so big so who he plays at CB is like playing Guess Who. Theres no way to judge until we've stripped it down.

So law of averages wise, I'm guessing we'll probably be behind Liverpool and Arsenal. I think we'll do the classic City trope of starting out a bit slow and everyone flapping in August and September then will get better as the new guys are bedded in and probably go on a streak after Xmas. I just think we might be a little too far away at that point.
 
HelloCity said:
Think we're a right back and top class wide player short.

Several of the current options aren't good enough.

Overall though, I don't think we should underestimate the difference Rodri will make to the team. We're basically adding the world's best player to our midfield.
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Livramento and Rodrygo and we are laughing but it sounds like the dippers are getting Rodrygo when they sell Diaz to Bayern :-(
 
Damocles said:
It depends for me. If I was forced to make a prediction, it would be 3rd.
Because the evidence available however skant suggests we haven't fixed the countering problem and that was the difference last year between winning the title and not.
But my more nuanced opinion is that we have no idea how this will shake out. I'm not particularly convinced on Gyokeres as the solution for Arsenal and his only great seasons have come in either the Championship or the Portuguese league. There's a question mark there.
Liverpool are a huge threat but I also would like to see Slot when he has to cope with the pressure of that day to day, week to week, point for point style run in that Klopp and Pep had. Feel like you get to see what people are really made of in those circumstances. But they've signed well. Not well enough I'd argue, while its fine giving VVD another couple of years, when players his age drop then they absolutely drop off a Walker sized cliff and go from the best in the world to struggling in about 3 months. They do need a Guehi imo. And as distasteful as it is, with Jota dying then they're short up top now and will need to go to market.
Chelsea will be a huge threat. Their player signing addiction isn't going away and eventually all the parts will add up to something. @BillyShears said the other day that keeping Lavia fit is going to determine their season and I agree that they need more control.

City have question marks around the squad. Firstly, we have about 31 players all in and it wasnt that many weeks ago that our manager said he'd quit if they dont get it down to 23ish. Even if people rate Nunes as a fullback then he isn't going to play 60 games and Rico seems to be preferred in midfield. I believe Pep put Akanji there for the same reason that he admitted he went with a strikerless system in the season where we failed to buy Kane - to make a point to the board.
I presume our backup left back is now Gvardiol with one of the CBs taking his place rather than O'Reilly.
Doku and Savinho are still wide players with not enough output. In fact the whole of City are players with not enough output. Great teams like us a few season back have goals all over the pitch. Even defenders who can grab a couple of cheeky goals to make the difference. 80% of our goal output goes through one person. This has to change, you cant have a single point of failure. Marmoush helps a lot but we need the new boys to contribute and the other talented players we have to shoot more.

When I look at this City squad, I see a lot of blurriness. Players not really fitting in properly, no clear roles for some. There needs to be work done before September to focus it.

So theres the bad points.

Here's the good points. Last season City completely forgot how to play football for 3 months and scraped wins after that and we finished 13 points behind the Champions. 13 points is nothing in the scheme of things. Its a lucky deflection and a few bad ref decisions. And we didn’t do this because we were the third best team in the country, at times we were barely the third best team in Manchester behind Maine Road FC and the Dog and Duck, but because the individual talented and the mentality of the squad dragged us there. City have always played their best when slightly pissed off. Whether that be games where we had major title points on the line and went 1-0 down to where we famously went unbeaten for the entire rest of the season when the charges were announced. That's mentality. And with ours then we'll always be in with a shout.

But intangibles are intangible and relying on them over the cold hard facts in front of you is the type of arrogant exceptionalist wankery that has helped cause the downfall of (THIS IS) Man United.

I've mentioned this a billion times before but the way that I measure the quality of a squad is this - I ask if we were to sell the player today, who would their next club be? Ideally you want the answer to consist of Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich (as a hypothetical, not a "they're broke" reality). Walker was Burnley so thats his level and he needed to go. Dias would be on the radar of those 3 immediately so we should keep him. Rodri same, Haaland same, etc. Laporta would personally deive to Manchester and fellate Khaldoon on the pitch at HT to sign Foden. Nunes though? If we were to put him up for sale then who is interested? A Villa or Spurs perhaps? Not Madrid. So he needs replacing medium term. What about Ortega? I reckon those 3 would like him as a backup so he stays.
What's John Stones next club? Gundogan? Akanji? Its going to be closer to a Burnley than a Bayern.

The best way to win a football match is to have the best players working under the best manager. I think we have the best manager in history. But a lot of our squad are in that "going to West Ham next" type of scenario and that means, despite their incredible contributions to us, its basically an admission that they aren't to the standard any more.

The squads too fuzzy at the moment, fat and bloated and tired. There's no way for to predict whether we'll finish 1st or 4th because the squad has the potential at the moment to finish anywhere as its so big so who he plays at CB is like playing Guess Who. Theres no way to judge until we've stripped it down.

So law of averages wise, I'm guessing we'll probably be behind Liverpool and Arsenal. I think we'll do the classic City trope of starting out a bit slow and everyone flapping in August and September then will get better as the new guys are bedded in and probably go on a streak after Xmas. I just think we might be a little too far away at that point.
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The uncertainty lies in Rodri's rehab. and the age of the young central defenders we bought in January.
 
If we can get our conversion rate in line with basically any other top 10 team we will piss it
Even with the best number 9 in the world it takes us far to many chances to score.
 
Injury free season and we win it. We had an AWFUL season last year and still didn’t land too far behind. The reality is we are probably the only team capable of finding the consistency to hit 90+ points.

I would still like a RB. The Nunes debate has been done to death but for me he’s good for rotation there against some sides, but against the class wingers I’d want somebody who can actually defend.
 
I actually think it will be a four way race this time. I think it's coming together for Chelsea, Arsenal will buy a striker, and even if just decent they'd be a better finisher than Havertz. Liverpool are obviously good. They may be affected by the Jota tragedy, but they may also feed off it and use it to galvanised them.

I think if anyone hits 90 points they win it. I think we could improve to get mid-80s, which could be enough. If we can keep to within 6 points by the end of Feb I'll fancy our chances.
 
It’s hard to make a prediction.

Dips and Arsenal have settled squads and that always is an advantage as city themselves have shown by winning so much.

We could end up surprising and start on fire. The city squad is top 3 in the league but which order? Don’t know.

That’s not a bad place to start. The issue with making a claim is we don’t know what the squad will look like until the window shuts. Glimpses of brilliances undone by bad defending. Foden looks sharp and that is a big fucking plus.

I feel the only real issue is pep using the squad properly and genuinely giving the new players a chance to replace the old. How that is managed will determine 1st or 3rd.
 
Damocles said:
It depends for me. If I was forced to make a prediction, it would be 3rd.
Because the evidence available however skant suggests we haven't fixed the countering problem and that was the difference last year between winning the title and not.
But my more nuanced opinion is that we have no idea how this will shake out. I'm not particularly convinced on Gyokeres as the solution for Arsenal and his only great seasons have come in either the Championship or the Portuguese league. There's a question mark there.
Liverpool are a huge threat but I also would like to see Slot when he has to cope with the pressure of that day to day, week to week, point for point style run in that Klopp and Pep had. Feel like you get to see what people are really made of in those circumstances. But they've signed well. Not well enough I'd argue, while its fine giving VVD another couple of years, when players his age drop then they absolutely drop off a Walker sized cliff and go from the best in the world to struggling in about 3 months. They do need a Guehi imo. And as distasteful as it is, with Jota dying then they're short up top now and will need to go to market.
Chelsea will be a huge threat. Their player signing addiction isn't going away and eventually all the parts will add up to something. @BillyShears said the other day that keeping Lavia fit is going to determine their season and I agree that they need more control.

City have question marks around the squad. Firstly, we have about 31 players all in and it wasnt that many weeks ago that our manager said he'd quit if they dont get it down to 23ish. Even if people rate Nunes as a fullback then he isn't going to play 60 games and Rico seems to be preferred in midfield. I believe Pep put Akanji there for the same reason that he admitted he went with a strikerless system in the season where we failed to buy Kane - to make a point to the board.
I presume our backup left back is now Gvardiol with one of the CBs taking his place rather than O'Reilly.
Doku and Savinho are still wide players with not enough output. In fact the whole of City are players with not enough output. Great teams like us a few season back have goals all over the pitch. Even defenders who can grab a couple of cheeky goals to make the difference. 80% of our goal output goes through one person. This has to change, you cant have a single point of failure. Marmoush helps a lot but we need the new boys to contribute and the other talented players we have to shoot more.

When I look at this City squad, I see a lot of blurriness. Players not really fitting in properly, no clear roles for some. There needs to be work done before September to focus it.

So theres the bad points.

Here's the good points. Last season City completely forgot how to play football for 3 months and scraped wins after that and we finished 13 points behind the Champions. 13 points is nothing in the scheme of things. Its a lucky deflection and a few bad ref decisions. And we didn’t do this because we were the third best team in the country, at times we were barely the third best team in Manchester behind Maine Road FC and the Dog and Duck, but because the individual talented and the mentality of the squad dragged us there. City have always played their best when slightly pissed off. Whether that be games where we had major title points on the line and went 1-0 down to where we famously went unbeaten for the entire rest of the season when the charges were announced. That's mentality. And with ours then we'll always be in with a shout.

But intangibles are intangible and relying on them over the cold hard facts in front of you is the type of arrogant exceptionalist wankery that has helped cause the downfall of (THIS IS) Man United.

I've mentioned this a billion times before but the way that I measure the quality of a squad is this - I ask if we were to sell the player today, who would their next club be? Ideally you want the answer to consist of Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich (as a hypothetical, not a "they're broke" reality). Walker was Burnley so thats his level and he needed to go. Dias would be on the radar of those 3 immediately so we should keep him. Rodri same, Haaland same, etc. Laporta would personally deive to Manchester and fellate Khaldoon on the pitch at HT to sign Foden. Nunes though? If we were to put him up for sale then who is interested? A Villa or Spurs perhaps? Not Madrid. So he needs replacing medium term. What about Ortega? I reckon those 3 would like him as a backup so he stays.
What's John Stones next club? Gundogan? Akanji? Its going to be closer to a Burnley than a Bayern.

The best way to win a football match is to have the best players working under the best manager. I think we have the best manager in history. But a lot of our squad are in that "going to West Ham next" type of scenario and that means, despite their incredible contributions to us, its basically an admission that they aren't to the standard any more.

The squads too fuzzy at the moment, fat and bloated and tired. There's no way for to predict whether we'll finish 1st or 4th because the squad has the potential at the moment to finish anywhere as its so big so who he plays at CB is like playing Guess Who. Theres no way to judge until we've stripped it down.

So law of averages wise, I'm guessing we'll probably be behind Liverpool and Arsenal. I think we'll do the classic City trope of starting out a bit slow and everyone flapping in August and September then will get better as the new guys are bedded in and probably go on a streak after Xmas. I just think we might be a little too far away at that point.
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An excellent analysis - thank you - I particularly like the 'next club' perspective, as it really positions our squad versus the other three (as I do think Chelsea need to be added to the list of teams capable of winning the league). I think all three are currently ahead of us in terms of squad quality. However a couple of aspects could change that:
1. we must acquire a top, top right back
2. how long it takes Rodri to get back to match fitness / sharpness
3. can we keep Stones fit - if we can then he will be like a new signing

Fix those three and we will have a very good chance of winning the league.
 
All depends on Rodri for me. He seems to be the glue that holds it all together. Even getting 20-25 games out of him might be the difference.
 
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