Will we win the league this season?

[SWP's back]

It's not just that the mid-table has got better. City's recovery is helped by a weak top 6.

Based on…?

 

[bridgeno1]

You say it’s not a great league but it could also be an incredibly strong league. How the teams fair in Europe is usually a decent barometer.

I'd say the leaders are miles off the level of the great champions of the past (eg Centurions) but pretty much every team can land punches better than ever before. There aren't many gimmes in this league.

 

[Marvin.]

Based on…?

Based on points per game and the presence of teams like Sunderland in the top 6. Sunderland work very hard. That's it. The PL has depth but the traditional top 6 have largely fallen away, not in my opinion because the mid-table hasgot better but because teams like Liverpool and Chelsea made errors in their team building.

I am not sure that I can prove that the change in the structure of the top 6 reflects weakness but I think the points totals suggests it. Villa and Sunderland are the new kids on the block. There's probably one really good player in each side: Rogers and Xhaka.

 

[Marvin.]

I'd say the leaders are miles off the level of the great champions of the past (eg Centurions) but pretty much every team can land punches better than ever before. There aren't many gimmes in this league.

Agreed. Everton being a good example. Winning there was a great result for Arsenal. PL is full of tough games but in my opinion there aren't many really outstanding sides. City are 2nd but below the standard we used to be. Chelsea can be great on their day but just as often are garbage. Newcastle away from home are useless.

 

[SWP's back]

Based on points per game and the presence of teams like Sunderland in the top 6. Sunderland work very hard. That's it. The PL has depth but the traditional top 6 have largely fallen away, not in my opinion because the mid-table hasgot better but because teams like Liverpool and Chelsea made errors in their team building.

I am not sure that I can prove that the change in the structure of the top 6 reflects weakness but I think the points totals suggests it. Villa and Sunderland are the new kids on the block. There's probably one really good player in each side: Rogers and Xhaka.

Points per game and/or points totals do absolutely nothing to prove your point whatsoever.

If the 20 best sides of all time were somehow placed in the same league together then you’d get a similar thing of few, if any, teams pulling away and every team would take points off each other.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

It’s an interesting point. I’d say other than Barca, RM, PSG and Bayern most of the World’s best players make their way to a team in the PL now. You have Bournemouth able to outbid AC Milan in the transfer market.

Arsenal lead the CL and the PL tables and all the ranking sites. If they aren’t the best team currently I don’t know who is….and yet I totally get that it’s hard to believe their team is anything special other than a well organised defensive unit. You can only beat what is in front of you I guess.

More football being played is something that is said a lot and is generally accepted as true. Interestingly I saw a study about a month ago that suggested the facts didn’t support the accepted truth.

There is a space at the top waiting for an innovative team and I think one will turn up soon. I hope it’s us, we have as good a chance as anyone with Pep in charge.

I suppose "more" football is a quantitive question, but I think the top players have put more football in their legs over the last five years with very little substantial breaks. Particularly compared to elite football say 20 years ago.

Yes, agree that the world's best players are ending up here. I have a theory that the datafication of football has partly led to slump we are in. All the teams are using all the same datasets to scout the same players to operate in quite a narrow set of systems.

But like you, if this Arsenal side or this Bayern side are the very, very best then I can think of a dozen sides over the last fifteen years that would have romped to a CL or two. I thought PSG were going to dominate for half a decade given how good they looked at the end of last year but don't seem to be kicking on.

 

[alexmcity]

The standard across Europe has undoubtedly dropped for me. Too much football, very little tactical innovation (PSG and Kompany doing interesting stuff, at best), no stand out team (PSG were good last year, great even, but outside of them who is close to being as good as they were in the mid to late 2010s?), transfer market has more or less dried up. Euro 24 was pretty poor from a quality or entertainment perspective. As I said up thread, Marcus Rashford is one of Barcelona's best players and Scott McTominay is the best player in Italy.

Rashford? Torres has scored 11 goals in La Liga, Rashford just 2. He's nowhere near as good as Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri. Crazy talk.

McTominay won the league with Napoli, which explains his award. I doubt many think he's *the* best player in Serie A.

 

[Cobwebcat]

I suppose "more" football is a quantitive question, but I think the top players have put more football in their legs over the last five years with very little substantial breaks. Particularly compared to elite football say 20 years ago.

Yes, agree that the world's best players are ending up here. I have a theory that the datafication of football has partly led to slump we are in. All the teams are using all the same datasets to scout the same players to operate in quite a narrow set of systems.

But like you, if this Arsenal side or this Bayern side are the very, very best then I can think of a dozen sides over the last fifteen years that would have romped to a CL or two. I thought PSG were going to dominate for half a decade given how good they looked at the end of last year but don't seem to be kicking on.

They have similar datasets true but they do different things with the information. Brighton and Brentford will be doing a lot more with it than say United.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

Rashford? Torres has scored 11 goals in La Liga, Rashford just 2. He's nowhere near as good as Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri. Crazy talk.

McTominay won the league with Napoli, which explains his award. I doubt many think he's *the* best player in Serie A.

Rashford has the second most assists in that team, McTominay won the league and player of the season award. I'm not talking abstracted technical ability, reputation, or anything else. What does that tell us about the respective qualities of those teams, the leagues they're in, and the quality of football around Europe at the moment?

 

[alexmcity]

Rashford has the second most assists in that team, McTominay won the league and player of the season award. I'm not talking abstracted technical ability, reputation, or anything else. What does that tell us about the respective qualities of those teams, the leagues they're in, and the quality of football around Europe at the moment?

Rashford tells me nothing. Barca have far better players than him.

Mahrez winning POTY didn't mean he was better than Aguero or David Silva or Toure who never won it. Good players can have outstanding seasons.

The financial power of the PL means that La Liga and Serie A find it more difficult to attract or keep top players, but Real and Barcelona remain quite attractive for the best players, Bayern and PSG are really good as well.

The PL is at its best as a league, even if the top 2 right now are not as good as City and Liverpool in, say, 18/19. But I'd say that Arsenal have a better squad than Liverpool back then and City have enormous potential.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

If we win our next four Prem games, I can't see the title momentum ending.

Arsenal have a very tough Christmas and early New Year.

 

[super_city_si]

Rashford? Torres has scored 11 goals in La Liga, Rashford just 2. He's nowhere near as good as Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri. Crazy talk.

McTominay won the league with Napoli, which explains his award. I doubt many think he's *the* best player in Serie A.

PR team gonna PR.

 

[super_city_si]

Pep has that fire again. Last season he protected everyone. He knew we wasn’t anyway near. He’s pushing them now. Add a forward and get Rodri back then we’ll chase them down

I dont think it’s just pep. Listening to his interviews he mentions the ‘spark’ and I think the players believe it. Peps the master at stoking that fire so it burns brightest when it matters.

Long way to go but we’ve been here enough times to reasonably expect we’ll be there.

 

[super_city_si]

2019 for me.

Tough call. The 2019 team did it mostly without de bruyne. Maybe total football wise 2018 but grit and mentality 2019. The 2019 team and especially Bernardo were like a dog with a bone. Both superb. Who’d have thought growing up we’d have seen this? Still shake my head sometimes.

In the last 7 years we’ve been the best team the league has ever seen.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Tough call. The 2019 team did it mostly without de bruyne. Maybe total football wise 2018 but grit and mentality 2019. The 2019 team and especially Bernardo were like a dog with a bone. Both superb. Who’d have thought growing up we’d have seen this? Still shake my head sometimes.

In the last 7 years we’ve been the best team the league has ever seen.

We have mate.

 

[Gorbachev]

Win our next 4 against Forest(A), Sunderland(A), Chelsea(H), and United (A), and I will start to believe.

Winning those games will set us up nicely for that really tough period at the start of February when we play Spurs and Liverpool away, which in all honesty, I am expecting the biggest shafting from PGMOL known to man.

That week will define whether or not Arsenal or us wins the league for me.

 

[MCFC1993]

Interested to hear your thoughts now. City have 15 so far (more than you predicted) and Arsenal can't get the 17 you predicted.

I think you underestimated the position of City and overestimated Arsenal.

Having all of the tough games out of the way isn't really a flex when you didn't win most of them and I think we've seen in recent weeks, Arsenal will struggle in games they shouldn't, again because they're not killing games.

I also think the games Arsenal refer to as 'hard' aren't necessarily hard for City.
- United (A), is usually an easier game for us than it is for you. Only lost 1 in 6, 3 wins in there.
- Everton (A) is tricky but again, historically harder for you guys.
- Spurs (A), better at their ground than ours in the past couple of seasons, won last 2 in the league to nil.
- Liverpool (A), this is the tricky game for us.
- Chelsea (A), tricky but we have a great record:
View attachment 178170
- Sunderland (A), they've been great but I think Arsenal made a meal of this game, players at AFCON makes it easier.

- Villa (A), Newcastle (A), Arsenal (A), Brighton (A), Palace (A), all ticked off, again like you guys, ticked off isn't great without results but a couple of decent results in there.

From an outside perspective on Arsenal, I would say your inability to kill games off is an issue. I think your defence is more stable, especially your starting defence without injuries but your attack is messy and a bit broken.

For me it's the winning margins that tell more of the story, I think the losses and draws almost cancel each other out, at the top a draw feels like a loss.:

	Arsenal	City
Lost	2	4
Drew	3	1
1 goal margin win	6	3
2 goal margin win	3	2
3 goal+ margin win	3	7

As I watch both teams at the moment, it just looks like there is less margin of error for Arsenal. Better defence but all it takes is 1 error, Everton were shit on Saturday but they could and should have had a penalty with 20mins to go to make it 1-1. Wolves were shit and got it level in injury time.

People say we look shaky at the back but we aren't playing as many tight games. People like to throw the Fulham game at us but we were 5-1 up and made some shocking subs at 5-2 when we thought the game was won.

It's going to be tight, I think it'll be won by less than 6 points, I'm not sure how we're still in it, which might raise questions about Arteta if you dont win it but it looks like it's going to be fun.

As I said the other day, ignore the defensive stats and look at game winning margins. Gone to pens in their cup game.

They might beat Palace but their attack hasn't been great which means they aren't killing games off.

 

[City Raider]

Another og. 3 of them and a pen last 3 games. They don’t score enough.

 

[Marvin.]

Points per game and/or points totals do absolutely nothing to prove your point whatsoever.

If the 20 best sides of all time were somehow placed in the same league together then you’d get a similar thing of few, if any, teams pulling away and every team would take points off each other.

But we don't have the 20 best sides of all time in the league we have some continuity from the previous season and I think the top 6 has sunk into the morass with teams like Spurs, Liverpool, Newcastle having particularly poor seasons. I realise that it is possible to argue that the low points totals for the top sides are due to a stronger mid and lower table but I am not seeing any strong emergent sides. If anything the technical quality of the league us dropping.

 

[domalino]

Win our next 4 against Forest(A), Sunderland(A), Chelsea(H), and United (A), and I will start to believe.

Winning those games will set us up nicely for that really tough period at the start of February when we play Spurs and Liverpool away, which in all honesty, I am expecting the biggest shafting from PGMOL known to man.

That week will define whether or not Arsenal or us wins the league for me.

Arsenal will drop points in the next 4, so if we win the next 4 we'll be top and really get to see what Arsenal are made of heading into the serious end of the season.