BillyShears said:
Sorry for the late reply chap, I wrote most of this out and had to run for a train before I could finish. Only just booted up the computer again!
At the moment I think we're straddled between two attitudes, which unfortunately doesn't mean the best blend of both. I'll try and avoid too many clichés but some are pretty suitable. I'll also clarify that this for me is very little to do with Pellegrini.
There's the Dortmund or Atleti, hungry, intent on proving themselves against the best (Could possibly put Liverpool in here actually), would run through brick walls for their manager. They know they're ultimately the underdogs, and the resultant lack of pressure can help them play their game.
Then you have the Bayern's, Barca's and Madrids. Establishment clubs with an attitude running throughout the organisation that buys into it whole heartedly. Usually incorporating the most talented players with the intelligence to play smart, not always hard. Understand that with this increase in talent comes the ability to coast, along with many opponents feeling beaten before the match has begun, yet ultimately always with the ability to turn it on and make the extra talent count. Not the sort of clubs to feel out of place facing up against one another in a high profile match. Used to high pressure of expectation, but arrogant enough to carry it. Always accompanied by lots of talk of how proud they are to 'wear the shirt'.
Now we seem to have amassed a group of players, or maybe it's just a club ethos still rooted firmly in that well known phrase I won't repeat too often, that we're still the inferior under dogs. That can be fine, that has it uses. The problem is we're combining this with the big player big talent attitude of winning matches before turning up, coasting too often, relying on talented moments to get us out of poor situations of our own doing rather than fully dominating matches like we could. We're not running through brick walls to prove ourselves but we're not coping with the pressure of expectation either.
People seem to think we're always one or two transfers away from Madrid or Bayern but there's so much more to it. You can't buy attitude, hunger or confidence. Environments for those traits to grow have to be built over time. I think we can rule out the Atletico method until we have slews of academy lads coming through, because we'll often be buying at the top end of the market. But the latter method doesn't come overnight either. I wish we'd ban that bloody phrase dining at the top table from this forum because our players to me don't seem to believe it. Top table players wouldn't have surrendered the title so pathetically the year after winning it. Top table players wouldn't be on course to finish third in the season immediately following that limp surrender (Correct at the time of writing pre-heroic effort from Sunderland). Still having the same problems playing away from home, cup finals, mid season collapse, slow football, lack of belief, fucking Sunderland.
A manager like Mourinho could maybe be the difference in attitude but I still believe with him it's mostly temporary. Maybe the players would have more faith with Pep but I think once the novelty wore off we'd see the same things creeping back in.
It's also hard to lay it fully on injuries when we've seen the same things crop up under two very different managers over the past three/four seasons, all with different injury records. Yes we won the title when we had minimal injuries, but still showed many of the same problems mentioned above (the most notable culminating in the huge gap with six games to go and some minor things that happened during the last game of the season).
TL;DR We have big players who want to be underdogs when they should be monsters. Not something we can necessarily fix with a couple of signings.
Hopefully Pellegrini is the man to show them just how good they can be, because I think it's not unfair to say they're fairly short on delivery for the promise so far.