Will we win the league this season?

A lot of people seem certain we can't.
I can't see the future and I've no idea how the rest of the season is going to go for us or our realistic title rivals.
I'm pretty certain though that we're already playing much better football than last season and I'm going to enjoy watching us try to win the league.
 
Cityfan said:
A lot of people seem certain we can't.
I can't see the future and I've no idea how the rest of the season is going to go for us or our realistic title rivals.
I'm pretty certain though that we're already playing much better football than last season and I'm going to enjoy watching us try to win the league.
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I've seen us playing exactly the same as last season so far, no change at all
 
simon23 said:
not with the way we are playing

if we won it playing like this it would say something about the state of the rest of the league......this is the poorest we have been since the first year Pep took over.

If we improve and win it then thats a different story

As for injuries...how long have we been saying we need cover for certain players in certain positions....DM, RB......

3-4 years in terms of Rodri cover, 12 months at least since Kyle Walker fell off a cliff.....and Stones has been injury prone for years....none of that is new and we cant make the excuse of injuries...every team has them nd its upto the club to build a squad that is strong enough to cover the prospect of nijuries
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That's it, concentrate on the negatives.

Your last sentence is just plain stupid. Injuries are not an excuse, they are what happens when players are playing 60+ matches a season for club and country. Nobody can litigate for the sheer number of long term injuries we had to key players last season and we still have a few now. Our three best signings, arguably, in Marmoush, Khusanov and Cherki are still out. Kovacic is still out. What do we do, go and buy another 4 players?

You can't have 24+ potential Ballon d'Or winners in ANY squad because top players want to be out there playing, not sat on the bench in case another player gets injured. That's why we have players wanting to leave from time to time, Alvarez for example.

EVERY whinger on this board makes the same mistake, they seek perfection and you'll never find it.
 
Beanhead said:
Have you watched the fucker in the last two years? Particularly the last 12 months. He’s unreal.
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I agree, I rate Semenyo but we can't just keep buying more players or we end up with players wanting to leave again because they can't get match time. That's why we lost Alvarez. We still have Marmoush, Cherki, Kovacic, Khusanov, Ait-Nouri and so on out and they'll want to play when they are fit again.
 
Beanhead said:
Have you watched the fucker in the last two years? Particularly the last 12 months. He’s unreal.
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Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. But he plays for Bournemouth. The standards and pressure are different

Either way, it doesn’t really matter as I expect he’s a 70mil player and no way we pay that in Jan
 
Marvin. said:
Recovery is a process.

We played very well in the 1st half. Brentford are awkward to play and we are the first side to beat them at their ground this season.

We are 3 points off Arsenal and the only team playing better football than City at the moment is Arsenal. Cherki and Marmoush are still to come into the side whilst Rodri should slowly recover. Doku and Bobb look very strong to me.
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Recovery IS a process and I've been waiting for somebody to say that for months. I don't think many on here will ever get it. Good result today and the assessment is spot on, but there's some who insisted we'd lose today still moaning about it.

We also have Ait-Nouri and Khusanov to come back and several other fringe players who are good enough to do a job in a strong team. With as many as possible fit I think we have the strongest squad out there, far better than Liverpool and I think Arne Slot had a free hit last year and they still dropped 30 points. This year he'll find it a whole lot tougher and it's already beginning to show in my opinion. He looked lost after their match yesterday, like a man who was running out of ideas already.

Arsenal are strong there's still that mentality thing with them. They dropped 40 points last season what should have been their best chance with us out of serious contention through injuries, yet despite our season we were within one match of catching them and outscored them. They're not tactically brilliant, they attack and defend in numbers, there's a lot of kick and rush and a lot of physical exertion in the way they play and I think that might be what's costing them at the end of the season when it always seems to get away from them, but Arteta doesn't have a plan B.
 
coolcity said:
I agree, I rate Semenyo but we can't just keep buying more players or we end up with players wanting to leave again because they can't get match time. That's why we lost Alvarez. We still have Marmoush, Cherki, Kovacic, Khusanov, Ait-Nouri and so on out and they'll want to play when they are fit again.
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We'll need them as the cup competitions come thick and fast. I've actually changed my mind recently, I think we can push both dippers and arsenal to the title. Granted Arsenal look a more complete team and are rightly favourites but dont forget it took a last minute equalizer for them to grab a point of us. There's some silly buggers on here saying we havent changed from last season which is completlely false. I guess they really don't understand football or watch the game. That second half rear guard performance at Arsenal came from no where. I dont think I've ever seen us defend so doggedly. And today, some of our passing and movement in the first half was just like the old days. It was brilliant, we just faded a bit in the second half plus Brentford had to come at us and give it a go. That happens in all games. I can see progress.
 
citymad said:
We'll need them as the cup competitions come thick and fast. I've actually changed my mind recently, I think we can push both dippers and arsenal to the title. Granted Arsenal look a more complete team and are rightly favourites but dont forget it took a last minute equalizer for them to grab a point of us. There's some silly buggers on here saying we havent changed from last season which is completlely false. I guess they really don't understand football or watch the game. That second half rear guard performance at Arsenal came from no where. I dont think I've ever seen us defend so doggedly. And today, some of our passing and movement in the first half was just like the old days. It was brilliant, we just faded a bit in the second half plus Brentford had to come at us and give it a go. That happens in all games. I can see progress.
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I agree, but I also think we have the best squad overall, we just need players back. I know that Khusanov is a colossus, we just haven't had the chance to see it yet, and we have a lot of others to come back. We also have the problem that teams defend deeper against us yet we're still top scorers.

For me, we're favourites, I think we have a better squad and more experience than the other two and we know how to mix it. Liverpool's total last season wouldn't have been enough to catch us in any of the last 6 seasons that we won it and I'm not expecting them to do much better this season while Arsenal are a lot of kick and rush, getting players up and down the field as quickly as possible and I think that's costing them in the long term. .
 
On 12 November in the treble season, we lost to the team we beat today. At the Etihad, too. This, from the report on the beeb:

Manchester City just crawled over the line against Fulham with a stoppage-time penalty from Haaland but there were no escape this time and they did not deserve one.

City started as if in a daze, conceding early chances, and they were still only half awake even after Toney headed Brentford in front.

It looked like they were back on track after Foden's leveller but for all their increased pressure there was none of their trademark fluency as they were frustrated by Brentford's defensive resilience and determination.

There was then the break for the World Cup. I think very, very few people thought we were going to be PL champions at that point. Nobody so much as conceived we were going to do the European treble.
The great thing about City — and it's been pretty much true since the 2011-12 season, and very true since Guardiola arrived — is that nobody quite knows how the team is going to evolve through the season. The one exception, really, was 2017-18, where we started at A and headed relentlessly to Z in a straight line. Last season, at slightly later than this point in it, City dropped through the floor. We'd been rocky, but nobody quite foresaw, either, quite how far we would plummet. Least of all the boss.
It's interesting being a City supporter, it's fun… I have no idea how this season is going to pan out.
 
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