Will we win the league this season?

Gorbachev said:
It's alarming how poor our top 6 record has been over the last 2/3 years.

We've become Arsenal under Wenger in his latter years where they would would scrape top 4 because they battered the dross, but were the laughing stock when they played the top 6 teams in the league.
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Last season it was 0, 1, 6, 4, 3 - 14, the others got 14 against us - it is average.

Season before it was 14 points too. Arsenal 13.
 
No. It was always going to be a transitional season with about 70 odd points. Hopefully win a trophy. Title challenge next season
 
youngbob said:
Sticking with what I said just before the end of the 24-25 season.
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Still sticking with this:

I don't think next season is about winning the PL and CL. The rebuild will take longer than a summer. Next season is about getting the good vibes back at the club, going for the League Cup (or FA Cup again), and trying to finish more comfortably than we have this season. Summer 2026 is when the team will aim to be completed, for the 26-27 season.

Where we are right now is roughly where we were during the final season under Pellegrini, 15-16. We had lots of ageing players and some past-it legends who need shifting, we got 65-70 points in the league, and were just about hanging on in the race for CL football in the 16-17 season. That summer was the first little step back to the top, then summer 2017 put the finishing touches in place.

Should we sneak top four this week, I think we get some new faces in, get Rodri back, finish as fairly competitive runners-up (to either Liverpool or Arsenal) in the league, make a good show of ourselves in the domestic cups but fall short in Europe, and then make big moves immediately afterwards. My prediction is that Pep signs off with a PL title in 2027 and bows out.

Even though I think he's got one more PL title in him with City, I actually think it might be worth letting Pep go this summer because he's just beginning the downward slope away from his peak and there are managers like Xavi, Inzaghi, and Enrique available. Right now we're a bit like Arsenal in 2009 and we don't want to get stuck in the "Wenger can turn it around" cycle they did. But I guess Pep's earned the right to try and build something new.

That's enough to finish 2nd next season and make a go of it in Europe.
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We need two new elite strikers.

City need a clear out in January:
Bobb
Savinho
Gonzalez
Nunes
Ake
Reijndeers
Lewis

We also need someone in to take a corner.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
I thought Arsenal were favourites at the start, and they still are for me.

But we're definitely still in it, I'd put us equally likely as scousers, and everyone else a long way back.

Hilarious thread though, a few pages back it was all over and the scousers bus parade was booked.
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Seem to recall you rubbishing recent records in fixtures in the Villa pre match thread, as we then went on to mirror our last 3 performances there and lose again.

We’re in for a shock this season.
 
Gabriel said:
We still have a very young and comparatively inexperienced squad, many of whom have not gone through the rigours of a full season at our level. Any trophy will be a bonus.
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15 of our squad have either never won a major trophy in their careers in any country or weren’t key players in their team where they have.

That’s a large chunk of the squad.

However, we probably have more major trophy winning experience through the rest of our squad than any other PL squad.

But what good really is that to those who haven’t? You can advise and guide players with words or actions on a daily basis, but most people only learn when they actually experience it themselves.

Therefore, the people we need to step up and win games and win the league for us are those who’ve already done it.

Unless we start buying players across the team like Donnarumma who have won major honours at other clubs, there’s not really a point us moaning as a fanbase about 21 year old Savinho, Bobb who's not even started 15 games in his senior club football career or Reijnders who never made it into a first team until he was 21, only started playing for his national team at 25 and who’s never won a major trophy in his career, for not winning the match against Villa (or other matches) and not winning the league because it needs to come from our senior trophy-wining-experienced players.

The only thing is, of our attacking 6 players on Sunday, half of them have no experience of going to a place like Villa and winning and no experience of winning a major trophy. And one of the only three who has (BSilva), his legs have gone. Add to that the two left (Haaland and Foden) not having good games… and you can see why we lost on Sunday and you can see why we won’t win the league.
 
I actually think we have more chance finishing bottom half than we do winning the league.

We have regressed so badly, especially on the road, that I can’t see us getting even a point away at any of Liverpool, United, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Spurs, Palace and Chelsea.. and can’t even see us beating the likes of Forest, Everton or Sunderland on the road.

That means we need to pick a lot of points up at home to even compete for European places. We haven’t beaten Arsenal or Liverpool at home since the treble season so can’t see that changing.

Going to be a very tough season resulting in rebuilding again after our first failed attempt at a rebuild.
 
brian the blue said:
I actually think we have more chance finishing bottom half than we do winning the league.

We have regressed so badly, especially on the road, that I can’t see us getting even a point away at any of Liverpool, United, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Spurs, Palace and Chelsea.. and can’t even see us beating the likes of Forest, Everton or Sunderland on the road.

That means we need to pick a lot of points up at home to even compete for European places. We haven’t beaten Arsenal or Liverpool at home since the treble season so can’t see that changing.

Going to be a very tough season resulting in rebuilding again after our first failed attempt at a rebuild.
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You think there's 10 better teams than us?
 
brian the blue said:
I actually think we have more chance finishing bottom half than we do winning the league.

We have regressed so badly, especially on the road, that I can’t see us getting even a point away at any of Liverpool, United, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Spurs, Palace and Chelsea.. and can’t even see us beating the likes of Forest, Everton or Sunderland on the road.

That means we need to pick a lot of points up at home to even compete for European places. We haven’t beaten Arsenal or Liverpool at home since the treble season so can’t see that changing.

Going to be a very tough season resulting in rebuilding again after our first failed attempt at a rebuild.
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Harsh truths that many won’t like. Id take 5th this season with a decent cup run and hopefully right the wrongs of the last 3 years.
 
This thread makes me laugh. The amount of flip-flopping based on individual results is off the scale. Before Sunday's defeat, many felt we were in the mix for the title as a result of our improved form since the 2 August defeats. Go back to the aftermath of that Brighton defeat and some were saying we wouldn't even finish in the top half. At various points since the start of the season we've gone from Liverpool winning it at a canter, Liverpool imploding and no way will they win it now, Arsenal not having the mentality to win it, Arsenal winning it at a canter, City winning it, City being lucky to finish in the top 4/top 6/top half, City being back in the mix (pre-Villa), and now City having no chance (post-Villa)
 
Probably give us a 15% chance at best of winning it now

In far too many away games I can see whats going to happen before the game, as its happened so often in the last 16 months or so, and we appear to have no plan to stop it. Or are incapable of.
Going into Villa away on Sunday i thought we'd lose, as we have done the last two years in insipid style. Although it may have been marginally better it was pretty toothless. Once we concede in these games we're more often than not, not getting back into the game. Happens too often away from home against a top half team.

The team was also all wrong on Sunday. Reijnders holding and four attack minded midfielders ahead of him. Doku been dropped recently after finally showing some great form is baffling. O'Reilly was in great form and then dropped. Nico could have played and was badly needed. Dias and Gvardiol had a good partnership going thats been broken up for some reason also. And finally Bernardo, i'm sorry I know he's been a great player for the club and is club captain, but he's like having a man less in a lot of these games. Not physical enough to stop us getting over-run in midfield.

Sunday's performance will likely be repeated a few more times this season when we visit Liverpool, United, Spurs, Bournemouth and Palace for example.
 
M18CTID said:
This thread makes me laugh. The amount of flip-flopping based on individual results is off the scale. Before Sunday's defeat, many felt we were in the mix for the title as a result of our improved form since the 2 August defeats. Go back to the aftermath of that Brighton defeat and some were saying we wouldn't even finish in the top half. At various points since the start of the season we've gone from Liverpool winning it at a canter, Liverpool imploding and no way will they win it now, Arsenal not having the mentality to win it, Arsenal winning it at a canter, City winning it, City being lucky to finish in the top 4/top 6/top half, City being back in the mix (pre-Villa), and now City having no chance (post-Villa)
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Villa away is becoming a tricky away day these days we haven’t won there since 2021 when Bernardo Silva caught that volley perfectly after some nice moves before hand. Emre has instilled some quality and hard work into them that City were unable to match during periods of the first half.

Will City win there league this season? Probably not, we still need more from our wide attacking players rather than Haaland scoring all the time. Rodri needs to get on top of his fitness although we are seeing good progress from Nico Gonzales as his deputy.

The team is a work in progress, revise your hopes down from winning the league to finishing top four with improvements on patterns of play and how we cope at the back.
 
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