Will we win the league this season? No

[Irlamblue]

A great effort
Just a little short over the full season.
Looking good for another two cups.
well done guys
Couple of unaffordable errors but
great comeback to take a point

overall season performance 8/10 - Against our very high standards

 

[Bluemoonadam]

We pretty much fell at the fiest hurdle last night, I dont see us winning all of our remaining games. I just hope we do chelsea now.

 

[dickie davies]

If we win the FA Cup, it will have been an 8.5/10 season, which is bloody good considering how last season ended

A 9 season would be winning the league
A 10/10 is winning the CL, or the prem plus a cup

It's incredible how far we've come as a club that two cups in a season, IMO, can only be an 8.5/10
I am the football supporting equivalent of Veruca Salt

 

[OrigamiNinja]

We pretty much fell at the fiest hurdle last night, I dont see us winning all of our remaining games. I just hope we do chelsea now.

That FA Cup final is huge IMO. For teams like City, a top 4 finish is the absolute bare minimum required. Throwing in a League Cup win, whilst nice for the fans, does not elevate a decent season to a great one. However, I think a domestic cup double and a 2nd placed finish makes it a very good season in most people’s eyes.

 

[bridgeno1]

Perspective is needed here. Rewind back to the start of this season. I think most sane city fans would have been in agreement that this was always going to be a transitional season due to the influx of new players. If we'd had no sniff of the title this season, everyone would be claiming how much better we look all round compared to last term. However, because we have been tempted by that late run of good form getting us to within a whisker of challenging for that title, everyone will now be disappointed and looking for something or someone to blame if we don't quite get there.

Ironically it's the title of a city documentary that highlights one of the bad traits of top level football fan expectations. It's 'all or nothing' When in reality there are many shades of success in between. If we don't finish top, it doesn't mean we've achieved nothing

Sensible post. Let's not forget everyone had the Dippers as an absolute shoo-in for the title with the signings of Wirtz and Isak. And look how far they've fallen.

 

[Marvin.]

This is not the time for verdicts. It is not Done yet.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

It's not over, but there's been too much focus on Arsenal's mental fragility when we've still got some obvious weaknesses

You only have to look at City's starting XI on the opening day at Wolves to appreciate the extent of our evolution and we're undoubtedly heading in the right direction

However after so many dropped points early in the season we seem to have been forever playing catch-up, only to immediately drop silly points in similar fashion whenever we get anywhere close

Last night wasn't that different to both games v Brighton or Chelsea at home when we just drifted for large periods

 

[skillman]

The last thing Palace are going to want is heading into a final off the back of a 5-0 drubbing though. They’ll give it a crack

Unfortunately I don’t think teams work like that. Spurs last season were happy to throw away the league and get battered week after week because they were aiming for European glory - Ange has admitted that in interviews since.

 

[OrigamiNinja]

Sensible post. Let's not forget everyone had the Dippers as an absolute shoo-in for the title with the signings of Wirtz and Isak. And look how far they've fallen.

That doesn’t really soften the blow for me. It may for other City fans. There would have been no shame in losing the title to last years champions who then went and spent £450m in the summer. There was a certain expectation that would be the case.

However, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t rate your side in the slightest. I think that relatively speaking, you can’t hold a candle to previous title winners and will be the worst since Leicester. As would this City side TBF. This isn’t a reaction to last night, I’ve been consistent on this for months.

We’ve had a very decent season, especially when you consider our early expectations but this is the poorest PL in a long while. A number of previous Pep teams would have won this league with 6 games to go and therein lies the disappoint as a City fan.

 

[skillman]

Brighton are a decent side. It’s the dropped points against Spurs away, Forest at home and West Ham that have messed it up. 3 points out of 9 against them when really to win leagues, you need to be taking 9

The last minute equalisers of Arsenal and Chelsea are the ones that kill me the most. Seconds away from 4 extra points.

 

[Charlesfarsbar]

loads writing us off already I see

This isn’t over , we need to win our next three and make them have to win it away from home at Palace

That won’t be an easy task even if Palace rest a few

They have imploded plenty of times when it’s been in their hand , they’ll do the same again

 

[skillman]

We need a mentality shift IMO. You won’t see many more one-sided 1st halves than that last night and in years gone by full time that would have been a comfortable 3 or 4 nil victory. However, we see this continued pattern of what appears to be us trying to protect leads, rather than going for the kill like we used to. We now play a style at 1-0, that we only used to employ when the game was well and truly won. How many games did we watch where we would be 3 or 4 to the good and at 70 mins onwards we would have 80%+ possession, stop attacking and conserve energy? It felt like almost every week. Now we are trying this from the 46th min, with the game still in the balance. Our captain is one of the main culprits. It’s crazy stuff and it continues to bite us on the arse.

This. And it must stem from Pep which is so unusual.

He’s such a control freak that you’d think he wouldn’t allow the team to essentially stop attacking unless the game was absolutely won - I’m baffled why he’s had such a drastic change in mentality to something that’s served him so well for 16 years.

Especially when it’s painfully obvious we don’t have the personnel to shut down games anymore!

He used to say that he’d never have his teams have possession for possessions sake. But we do now and it’s shite.

 

[B\connellblue]

We can only keep them honest now and hope. Saturday will tell us whether the players believe it's still on.

 

[supercity88]

That doesn’t really soften the blow for me. It may for other City fans. There would have been no shame in losing the title to last years champions who then went and spent £450m in the summer. There was a certain expectation that would be the case.

However, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t rate your side in the slightest. I think that relatively speaking, you can’t hold a candle to previous title winners and will be the worst since Leicester. As would this City side TBF. This isn’t a reaction to last night, I’ve been consistent on this for months.

We’ve had a very decent season, especially when you consider our early expectations but this is the poorest PL in a long while. A number of previous Pep teams would have won this league with 6 games to go and therein lies the disappoint as a City fan.

I think that's the biggest disappointment. None of us thought we'd be challenging this season, but we didn't expect to have such a great opportunity to win it. Ultimately it was that spell where our defence was missing due to injuries and probably too many games without Rodri or finding our right balance.

Last night there was Haaland, Doku and Bernardo who have had experience of title winning situations. The rest were raw and we really missed having someone like Rodri or Dias to try and lead us through that period of pressure.

However, you look at all of those points dropped from winning positions this calendar year - 12 in total and even if we'd managed to convert half of them we'd be winning the league. If we can go and win the FA Cup then that double domestic trophy success is definitely something to be celebrated. It's not the ones we want, but it's a great start and we can use the disappointment this campaign as the fire that sparks us to life next season.

We need to go big again this summer to ensure that we are covered across the pitch though. We still have far too many weaknesses in our squad.

 

[Roachy]

I honestly don’t believe that Arsenal are the issue. It’s us. Earlier in this thread, I said with 15 games to go, that if we won 13 of them including beating Arsenal we would win the league. We’ve played 11 PL games since then and dropped points in 4 of them (3 x relegation candidates and a turd Everton). That does not get the job done and that’s on us. So yes, we are in squeaky bum time but these days we seemingly struggle just as much as our very average competition.

I said as much a couple of months back. I was pretty confident Arse would drop points. I suspected we would and we have, which in honesty is normal. Maybe expectations were a bit high, but we'd got ourselves into a great position before last nights game. Frustrated at the mistakes though, especially Guehi's.

 

[argyle]

Unlikely but whatever happens, finishing second and being in two cup finals is very decent considering we're in our first proper year of a rebuild.

This is the best Arsenal have done in years, and we're not far off even after playing erratically all season.

The difference is Rodri. If he's not in the side we struggle.

With the addition of Anderson, hopefully, we'll be much better next year.

In fact, I think we'll walk it.

 

[Lord Blue]

don't think we've been favourites for the title even once in 2026 no matter what the media and online might have suggested. even when level on points, we had the tougher fixtures. we've always required Asterisk FC to bottle it in some way.

The season isn't over but even if it was, 1 trophy is always a good season.

 

[youngbob]

Giving Spurs and Brighton 4 points each off us hasn't done us any favors either!

That's where this season's title was lost imo.. and it's been compounded by a few other things.

Gvardiol missed all four of these games.

Stones and Dias vs Spurs 0-2
Stones and Khusanov vs Brighton 1-2
Khusanov and Alleyne vs Brighton 1-1
Khusanov and Guehi vs Spurs 2-2

 

[Edghill OG]

It's not over, but there's been too much focus on Arsenal's mental fragility when we've still got some obvious weaknesses

You only have to look at City's starting XI on the opening day at Wolves to appreciate the extent of our evolution and we're undoubtedly heading in the right direction

However after so many dropped points early in the season we seem to have been forever playing catch-up, only to immediately drop silly points in similar fashion whenever we get anywhere close

Last night wasn't that different to both games v Brighton or Chelsea at home when we just drifted for large periods

Forest was a real killer too. Letting them come from behind twice. Especially on the back of beating the dippers at Klanfield we then throw it away to Forest at home when they were absolutely shite at the time.

The way the fixture list has played out after we'd beaten Arsenal at home has really helped them. If we had the opportunity (and took it) to go 6 points in front after being behind all that time I think they'd have imploded.

I haven't thrown the towel in yet. I didn't expect both teams to win all the remaining fixtures like many believed. If Arsenal do do that it'll be 85 points. These teams aren't like the City and Liverpool sides racking up 95+ point seasons so there was no evidence to suggest either would. Hopefully Atletico beat them tonight and kick the shit out of them in the process.

 

[IrishBlueSince92]

We can beat Brentford at home, and Arsenal can draw at West Ham. It's unlikely but not outlandish. When we were looking at our remaining fixtures, West Ham away have always been Arsenal's most difficult looking fixture, whilst Everton and Bournemouth away were City's difficult fixtures.

We've now made it easier for Arsenal because the pressure is less than it would have been but it's still a hurdle that Arsenal have to pass. You should not give up hope yet. City will not be giving up yet.

Newcastle at home while Arsenal were on a run were they couldn't win a game, and Fulham at home following Athletico were the games i was most hopeful for.

They have their tails up now again. Also 5 days rest from tonight to Sunday shouldn't affect them much.