Will we win the league this season?

It was always going to be a building season after last year so results will be up and down for a while. The whole league is very close so I can see 85 points winning it so still possible to win but unlikely. Just hang in there and you never know. We’d need to be max 6pts behind Arsenal for when they come to our place in April.
 
.db. said:
On average, we are losing 1.17 points per game so far this season. Keep this up and we’ll finish on 69 points.

I said at the start of the season that I had no idea how good we were with so many unknowns in the squad. I’ve said after each defeat that our deficiencies of so many being inexperienced in one way or another (lack of experience though age, through never having played in the PL before 2025, through never being a key player in a trophy winning team or through never having won a trophy in their careers) will see us put performances like today in every now and again.

After a dozen games, we look like a good team who can be excellent but can be bang average. We look a bit like we did in 2019-20 but with far less strength in depth.

I’ll stick with my prediction that we’ll be the league’s top scorers, will be brilliant in a number of games and will absolutely dick some teams, but we’ll have a monthly shit performance that will stop us even challenging for the title.
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This current City team reminds me of Arsenal in the later Wenger years. It will beat a lot of teams and most likely fight for top 4, but not quite good enough to win the big trophies.
 
Everyone here is acting as though Losing away at Newcastle is a horrific result.

St James park on a Saturday evening is of the toughest assignments in English football and on a day when we weren’t at our best it still could have gone either way. Ignore where they were sitting on the table for a minute. They are a champions league level team with some very good players and their home record is very good.

We aren’t going to collect 3 points every week and we don’t need to even if we want to win the title.
 
We're virtually a third of the way through the season so the optimists can' t labour the "early days" point for much longer

Villa and Newcastle were always going to be difficult fixtures, and even Brentford beat United and Liverpool.

However 3 points from 9 is nowhere near title winning form, and whilst I agree that a fully fit Rodri would make a huge difference, his "2-3 weeks out" (Peps words not mine) is now looking more like 2-3 months.

Arsenal struggled at Newcastle and needed two late set pieces. Meanwhile our late corner routine involved a misunderstanding between two substitutes and a Newcastle transition with everyone out of position

That concerns me more than the actual defeat,. especially as in stark contrast, we're now conceding far more corners and looking increasingly vulnerable to free headers.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
We lost 5 of our first 12 games in 1967-68.
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Totally different back then. There wasn’t the chasm between the title challengers and the rest of the teams that exist these days

In Peps 6 title winning seasons I think he’s only lost between 2 and 6 games all season

There’s 10 other teams in the league that have lost 4 or less games this season

FFS.. the rags have only lost 3 !!!!
 
chaddblue said:
Totally different back then. There wasn’t the chasm between the title challengers and the rest of the teams that exist these days

In Peps 6 title winning seasons I think he’s only lost between 2 and 6 games all season

There’s 10 other teams in the league that have lost 4 or less games this season

FFS.. the rags have only lost 3 !!!!
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Fair comment, mate.
 
We have no bite if spite in midfield and we will get overrun away from home which in turn means defeats so we will not win the title unless we can get Rodri back with Nico in midfield which is a big if
 
Danny Tiatto said:
Everyone here is acting as though Losing away at Newcastle is a horrific result.

St James park on a Saturday evening is of the toughest assignments in English football and on a day when we weren’t at our best it still could have gone either way. Ignore where they were sitting on the table for a minute. They are a champions league level team with some very good players and their home record is very good.

We aren’t going to collect 3 points every week and we don’t need to even if we want to win the title.
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Not losing but our performances (not just this one) are a bit powder-puff to say the least...any team with fight, drive and aggressiveness just bully us off the park....we lack aggression and physicality and this aint the first time with this team so far this season and it will happen again...with no way at present of changing it UNLESS some of the new lads step up to the fight....and there aint much sign of that....Cherki is hit and miss at best, Reijnders has been poor and RAN is being kept 0ut of the team (rightfully so) by a kis who is a number 10 by trade. Infact the only player we have bought recently that have stepped up is Donarumma (who needs to stop flapping at crosses -you are 6 foot fucking 5 for christs sake - dominate your 6 yd area!) but other than that has been great and if you want to go back a bit further Nico G...
The rest of our new aquisitions are looking a little ropey to say the least

Im not even bothered about winning the title...I want to see progress and Im not sure where this team is going....it has huge potential in the likes of Cherki, Nico G, Reijnders BUT also huge question marks in the same breath. Where does marmoush sit in all of this for instance..he aint ever really starting as a number 9...he aint creative enough to be a number 10 in Foden or Cherkis position which would be fine if we had creative wide players (but we don!).

Will Reijnders come good -no signs of that at present...which is strange as he has everything needed to be good.

Will Cherki move past the maverick role and become a tevez style player which is what he needs to be - full of aggression and drive - not what we are seeing now.
 
simon23 said:
Not losing but our performances (not just this one) are a bit powder-puff to say the least...any team with fight, drive and aggressiveness just bully us off the park....we lack aggression and physicality and this aint the first time with this team so far this season and it will happen again...with no way at present of changing it UNLESS some of the new lads step up to the fight....and there aint much sign of that....Cherki is hit and miss at best, Reijnders has been poor and RAN is being kept 0ut of the team (rightfully so) by a kis who is a number 10 by trade. Infact the only player we have bought recently that have stepped up is Donarumma (who needs to stop flapping at crosses -you are 6 foot fucking 5 for christs sake - dominate your 6 yd area!) but other than that has been great and if you want to go back a bit further Nico G...
The rest of our new aquisitions are looking a little ropey to say the least

Im not even bothered about winning the title...I want to see progress and Im not sure where this team is going....it has huge potential in the likes of Cherki, Nico G, Reijnders BUT also huge question marks in the same breath. Where does marmoush sit in all of this for instance..he aint ever really starting as a number 9...he aint creative enough to be a number 10 in Foden or Cherkis position which would be fine if we had creative wide players (but we don!).

Will Reijnders come good -no signs of that at present...which is strange as he has everything needed to be good.

Will Cherki move past the maverick role and become a tevez style player which is what he needs to be - full of aggression and drive - not what we are seeing now.
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"Cherki is hit and miss at best ...Reijnders has been poor...RAN is being kept out of the team by a kid...". That's too negative.

What I see now is a City squad with some strength in depth. We could have played Khusanov, Reijnders and Marmoush at SJP and we still have Rodri to come in.

The theme that I would concentrate on is improving our goal output across the side. We attacked very well at Newcastle until the last action.
 
blue_danube said:
Problem is I don't think anyone will get close enough to them to make them wobble. They'll get a free run at it.

Oh well, they've been knocking on the door for a few years now. The drop off by us and the dippers makes it pretty much inevitable they'll win one.
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I agree in that Liverpool have collapsed however City are imo improving but perhaps just not fast enough.
 
Citizen of Legoland said:
It was always going to be a building season after last year so results will be up and down for a while. The whole league is very close so I can see 85 points winning it so still possible to win but unlikely. Just hang in there and you never know. We’d need to be max 6pts behind Arsenal for when they come to our place in April.
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I like this angle. The season is 38 games in length and there will likely be swings and roundabouts ahead.
 
Bizarrely, this season is actually wide open bar the arse. If they lose a couple of their tough games they’ve got coming up then it’ll be a close call, especially considering they are serial bottlers and have that moron as their manager.

Could be anyone’s this season.
 
This season is so young. It will be totally, totally different by march, and even then there'll be a couple of months left.

Nothing to be learnt in that respect yet.

But our style and determination, for me, shows we will be there at the end.
 
Rammy Blue said:
Bizarrely, this season is actually wide open bar the arse. If they lose a couple of their tough games they’ve got coming up then it’ll be a close call, especially considering they are serial bottlers and have that moron as their manager.

Could be anyone’s this season.
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You say that Arteta is a moron but is he? He has a team that takes little risk and focuses on set-pieces. They have raised the threshold on foul play at set-pieces to a level that allows them to develop many effective routines. I don't like what they have done but this approach is going to be hard to stop. You don't have to be in good form, or in good nick to score from set-pieces, you just have to be very well drilled.
 
We’ve got to be consistent. When the window shut, we knew the team would take a while to click.

There have been good signs. FWIW I think our performance yesterday was not bad either.

Our main issue remains, we struggle against teams that are physical. It even happened against Monaco.

We will be fine, not all is bad. But realistically, as Pep said, best we can hope for is to be let’s say, 5-6 points within whoever is leading by March. Then try and go for it. That is all. Cannot expect to win it as of now.
 
For all our talk of a large squad, we are actually operating in a similar manner to many previous seasons: working a nucleus, rotating a handful of others, and academy products appearing and disappearing like comets. If the likes of Ake, Lewis, Kovacic, Ortega, and Phillips could be turned into two first-team regulars, I’d be more confident in our chances of sustaining a challenge. Without greater rotation, however, I suspect we might again look tired come the spring.
 
Gorton_Tubster said:
This season is so young. It will be totally, totally different by march, and even then there'll be a couple of months left.

Nothing to be learnt in that respect yet.

But our style and determination, for me, shows we will be there at the end.
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I said from day 1 that it would be dependent on the recovery of Stones and Rodri. Stones seems to have recovered but we do not play him so much. Rodri remains close to a return.

I, like you, are playing the long game because it is a long season and much can change. I think Arsenal are the team to beat but that City are likely the strongest challengers. Chelsea might emerge if they can get Cole Palmer fit.
 
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