Will we win the league this season?

roy.or.r said:
On what basis are you thinking Arsenal winning at Chelsea is highly unlikely? If anything it's quite likely they would.
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What a futile exercise. If everyone could predict the results of football matches we would all be winning the pools. City have had far better teams than this Arsenal side in the past and have been beaten by teams at home and away by sides that we didn't expect to win against us in that time. There is a long way to go nobody knows what will happen City have to keep going and stick in there. One thing's for sure if we give up we have no chance.
 
26 games to go. The PL is more unpredictable than it has been for years. I don't think we are consistent enough to win the PL this year and have lost too many games. That said, we are harder to beat this season. If we have any chance in the PL we'll need a winning run. Maybe a domestic cup is more realistic. And if we want to win the CL we'll need a favourable draw and a bit of luck. Arsenal have started well, but will they be able to cope if another team is breathing down their neck? Let's see how things look at the end of January. Come on City!
 
In 2018/19 we won our last 15 games, and we had to, because Liverpool were equally dominant.

The current team are nowhere near that level and if anything we're starting to resemble the 74-76 period when we could beat anyone at home but always seemed to struggle on our travels
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
In 2018/19 we won our last 15 games, and we had to, because Liverpool were equally dominant.

The current team are nowhere near that level and if anything we're starting to resemble the 74-76 period when we could beat anyone at home but always seemed to struggle on our travels
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Ironically enough, we beat Arsenal at Highbury during that period!
 
I appreciate it’s against Spurs.

I’ve just watched the highlights of Arsenal and Spurs.

Arsenal completely dominated the game. Attacking, free flowing football, players making runs all over the pitch, Saka and Eze causing havoc, Eze, scoring his goals from in and around the 18 yard area, etc. I didn’t see 1 Spurs attack in the highlights, bar the mistake that led to the great Richarlison lob. Spurs aside, on a team performance, from the highlights, Arsenal looked like a very, very good and slick team, motivated, organised, motoring through the gears, controlling the game, etc, just like the great City teams over the last decade. Arsenal are going to take some catching and overhauling.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Ironically enough, we beat Arsenal at Highbury during that period!
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Yeah I remember it well, if only for the rarity.

3-0 up and almost blew it.

I'm not sure if it was 75-76 or the previous campaign, but I remember Arsenal playing Spurs around Easter with both teams in serious danger of being relegated.

Spurs finally succeeded in 76-77
 
Danny Tiatto said:
it’s almost as though you have never experienced a title race before. Unless arsenal build a handy lead they won’t win it.
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Arsenal are a different team/squad now.

When first choice players are injured, they have good players to cover with the general standard of the team not declining so massively, which they didn’t have in 2022-23 or 2023-24 (last season, they were decimated with injuries nearly as much as us which was a different situation to the odd player).

Zubimendi has been a top signing. But if Saka, Odegaard, Gabriel and Gyokores are out injured you wouldn’t notice with Madueke, Eze, Hancipie, Merino etc. giving them the best squad in the league.

In their previous title battles with us, Arsenal crumbled if they had a key player injured in the run-in. Even their better players suffered because the stand-ins didn’t give them confidence. They now have the squad to stop that happening, their better players don’t have to worry about a shit player coming in.

Look at City at Villa recently; everyone said we lost because we had some key players missing. That never used to be a problem for us, as I posted on another thread recently:

Kompany missed most of our record breaking winning run in 2017-18 and we didn’t miss him.
De Bruyne missed a lot of the 2018-19 season and the long unbeaten run in 2020-21 and we didn’t miss him.
Sané missed most of the 2018-19 season and we didn’t miss him.
Fernandinho missed a lot of the second half of the 2018-19 season and we didn’t miss him.
Agüero missed most of the 2020-21 season and we didn’t miss him.

In 2018-19, we could have had Kompany, Mendy, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Sané and Agüero out injured and still chosen to rest Otamendi, Danilo and David Silva and still put out this XI:

Ederson
Walker—Stones—Laporte—Zinchenko
Gündoğan
BSilva—Foden
Mahrez—Jesus—Sterling

2½ years ago we rested all these lads and still beat Chelsea:
IMG_2946.jpeg

From 2017-23 we never lost a game because we had players out injured, we only ever lost due to not playing well.

I’m not saying Arsenal are at our levels from 2017-2023, but they’re ahead of the rest of the current league when it comes to that sort of thing.
 
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We haven’t even played each team yet, let alone home and away, nor have they, so it’s a tad premature to be calling anything.

Currently, it’d take City beating them at home and Arsenal losing one more game than City for it to be a ding dong battle at the top, and next week it’s 1 vs 2 after Arsenal have to play Bayern in midweek. Two bad results this week could knock them back dramatically…or two outstanding results could propel their season forward, but even then it would still only be a matter of one or two results!

Don’t forget, City won the title ahead of Liverpool the season they only lost 1 game…to us, at The Etihad, by 1 goal!! In essence, 1 goal, away from home, lost Liverpool the title that season!!!

It’s not over until it’s over. If there’s anything a City fan should have learned over the years, it’s that!
 
.db. said:
Arsenal are a different team/squad now.

When first choice players are injured, they have good players to cover with the general standard of the team not declining so massively, which they didn’t have in 2022-23 or 2023-24 (last season, they were decimated with injuries nearly as much as us which was a different situation to the odd player).

Zubimendi has been a top signing. But if Saka, Odegaard, Gabriel and Gyokores are out injured you wouldn’t notice with Madueke, Eze, Hancipie, Merino etc. giving them the best squad in the league.

In their previous title battles with us, Arsenal crumbled if they had a key player injured in the run-in. Even their better players suffered because the stand-ins didn’t give them confidence. They now have the squad to stop that happening, their better players don’t have to worry about a shit player coming in.

Look at City at Villa recently; everyone said we lost because we had some key players missing. That never used to be a problem for us, as I posted on another thread recently:

Kompany missed most of our record breaking winning run in 2017-18 and we didn’t miss him.
De Bruyne missed a lot of the 2018-19 season and the long unbeaten run in 2020-21 and we didn’t miss him.
Sané missed most of the 2018-19 season and we didn’t miss him.
Fernandinho missed a lot of the second half of the 2018-19 season and we didn’t miss him.
Agüero missed most of the 2020-21 season and we didn’t miss him.

In 2018-19, we could have had Kompany, Mendy, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Sané and Agüero out injured and still chosen to rest Otamendi, Danilo and David Silva and still put out this XI:

Ederson
Walker—Stones—Laporte—Zinchenko
Gündoğan
BSilva—Foden
Mahrez—Jesus—Sterling

2½ years ago we rested all these lads and still beat Chelsea:
View attachment 175736

From 2017-23 we never lost a game because we had players out injured, we only ever lost due to not playing well.

I’m not saying Arsenal are at our levels from 2017-2023, but they’re ahead of the rest of the current league when it comes to that sort of thing.
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This is spot on - basically the squad isn’t as strong as in the last 10 years and that’s why we won’t get as many points over a league season.
 
Arsenal are currently a better side with better depth than city and that’s fine. It’s ok to admit that.

Arteta has built a very very good side and one that is likely to win the league this year.

City’s job is to close that gap now. A few good transfer windows and we will be right back amongst the elite again. Currently I feel we are a very good team who can beat anyone at home but struggle away. It’ll come in time I’m sure
 
Midfield is going to cost us. We have brilliant technical midfielders but we lack physicality the league is the most physical it has been, Newcastle , Spurs and Villa gave us problems as they have physically imposing midfielders.

Nico G is the only consistent duel winner in our midfield. The others have incredible technical ability but are easily pushed off the ball, not aggressive enough, for Arsenal and Chelsea even they have duel winners. Enzo and Caicedo are aggressive off the ball especially Caicedo he's mistake waiting to happen but he still wins the ball frequently. Arsenal have Rice who's physical and wins the ball consistently for arsenal but also can carry it

To win this league you'd need a mix of both technical ability and physicality. Former city teams would be miles in front by now because Chelsea and Arsenal don't have both. They are just able to bully teams in midfield. None of Chelsea or Arsenal midfielders are technically excellent they just have a enough technical ability to take control of games it's the physicality aspect why they can do that better than us.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
Yeah I remember it well, if only for the rarity.

3-0 up and almost blew it.

I'm not sure if it was 75-76 or the previous campaign, but I remember Arsenal playing Spurs around Easter with both teams in serious danger of being relegated.

Spurs finally succeeded in 76-77
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1975-76 mate. As you say, winning at Highbury wasn’t such a big deal in that period. Those fucking shorts!
 
ChicagoBlue said:
We haven’t even played each team yet, let alone home and away, nor have they, so it’s a tad premature to be calling anything.

Currently, it’d take City beating them at home and Arsenal losing one more game than City for it to be a ding dong battle at the top, and next week it’s 1 vs 2 after Arsenal have to play Bayern in midweek. Two bad results this week could knock them back dramatically…or two outstanding results could propel their season forward, but even then it would still only be a matter of one or two results!

Don’t forget, City won the title ahead of Liverpool the season they only lost 1 game…to us, at The Etihad, by 1 goal!! In essence, 1 goal, away from home, lost Liverpool the title that season!!!

It’s not over until it’s over. If there’s anything a City fan should have learned over the years, it’s that!
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You're spot on about Arsenal's next few games and the odds of dropping points at Chelsea.

However you're cherry picking the seasons when City were strong enough to stay in contention, and ignoring our recent away results or individual performance

This feels more like one of those seasons when we never really recovered from a stuttering run of results.as United/Leicester/Chelsea/Liverpool pulled away.

We've now got a run of winnable home games, but we need more than that to be in contention.

We need Foden Doku and Cherki to start contributing goals.
We need a fully fit Rodri
We need to be dominating possession so that we concede less set pieces (where we definitely look vulnerable )
We need to be winning away games comfortably

All this and Arsenal to get bogged down with a few dropped points.
 
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