Has it been a good/poor season?

OrigamiNinja said:
I think we struggle in this regard because we do incredibly well at holding on to our best players. This is fantastic for us but what inevitably happens is that big-name players at other clubs don't necessarily want to come and play 2nd fiddle to a City legend. Look at Jesus, he was a kid who was happy to come to City and learn from Sergio but would say Harry Kane have wanted to come and sit on the bench when he was already ripping it up in the Prem?

We fans don't ever want to see our best players leave but I think we do have a tendency to hang on to them maybe that one season too long and this potentially impacts our future planning? I think we were guilty of this with Yaya and Silva. We may have been guilty of it with Vinny, had he not taken the decision out of our hands. I fear we will be guilty of it with Sergio.
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I always remember watching how Liverpool operated with their great teams of the 80's, always seemed to know when the right time to let players go, sometimes ruthlessly, but always with the long term goal to keep a winning team.
We have let some players stay too long, through sentiment or difficulty in finding replacements, who knows.
Aguero is the one now for me, and so important we replace him now. Martinez to me is the ideal candidate, and one season working alongside Kun would be perfect and a great way to introduce him into the side.
 
Keeper! said:
I always remember watching how Liverpool operated with their great teams of the 80's, always seemed to know when the right time to let players go, sometimes ruthlessly, but always with the long term goal to keep a winning team.
We have let some players stay too long, through sentiment or difficulty in finding replacements, who knows.
Aguero is the one now for me, and so important we replace him now. Martinez to me is the ideal candidate, and one season working alongside Kun would be perfect and a great way to introduce him into the side.
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Im with ya but I think after such a poor season, the club will look at other areas to strengthen.
 
It's not been that bad. We've watched fantastic football, we've scored 100 plus goals, we've got to the quarter finals of the CL, Semi Finals of the FA Cup, finished 2nd in the league and we've won a trophy. It can be even worse.

Bad decisions in the transfer market cost us. We can't let that happen again.
 
Poor but not because of City: PGMOL & VAR "incompetence"/corruption; simulation of players [in essence, cheating]; useful idiots in the media peddling a smear campaign against MCFC; empty stands and faux crowd noise and; the politicisation of football.
 
Was always going to be difficult to maintain the standards we set - especially when the spine of our team is retiring/leaving one by one - not a great lover of stats but it’s hard to believe we scored over 100 goals again - our keeper won the golden gloves - we had 5 players score 10 or more goals - only conceded 2 more than dippers - but lost 9 PL games and finished well off the pace in terms of points which is the stat that matters most - I might be corrected but don’t think we won a single game when conceding first ? It seems if teams lie down we hammer them (Watford 8 nil etc) but games against Wolves etc we ran out of ideas and just kept putting hopeful crosses in, lost possession and got done on the counter - a lot of our defeats were very similar. Definitely gone backwards this season and big test for Pep to come up with the answers - the defeat to Lyon was similar to Norwich at both ends of the season - did we learn nothing ? In my humble opinion the biggest mistake of the season was continuing to persist with Fern at CH or in a back 3 (Lyon). Can anyone really say Otamendi would have been any more of a liability ? Or Stones who the manager paid 60 million for ?
 
We entered 4 competitions and came:
2nd ... winners ... semi-finals ... quarter-finals.

We scored an absolute hat-ful of goals, including winning 8-0 etc in the league.
Easily outscored "the most exciting front players in Europe" of Liverpool & United.
Set a few new PL records along the way.

So if we had a "bad" season, then every team had a "worse-than-bad" season (except, arguably, Liverpool - but the League was their be-all this season).

Fair distance behind Liverpool in League, but VAR aided them (and hindered us) greatly. And realistically, no one has ever caught a 99-point team so the gap is partly down to their bonkers winning run.

Unless we think City should win everything they enter ... but (English) football rarely works like that.

Perhaps we've been spoilt by the Centurions & Quadruple seasons ? Have to remember they were both unique in English football.
 
I kind of expected a drop off to be fair. Not as big as we had but injuries played a huge part in that. I was more disappointed in the last couple of windows than the season. For me (only my opinion) the squad has become unbalanced.
Bravo, nico, ferna, d.silva & kun all another year older another yard slower.
Zinchenko & gundogan unable to play preferred role due to talent so filling in out of position
Mendy, stones, aguero, sane & kdb injury worries. (Although keve looks to have come through the worst of it)
Mahrez (my opinion) not what we needed. Slows up play.
lack of pace and leadership. Sane pace & kompany leadership not replaced.
Finally lack of diversity in attack. Sterling only out and out pace. No height. Foden added drive to midfield but too late in the season.

Yes we were unlucky in decisions and 9/10 games lost we should have won. Injuries were killing us, but, if nico had been replaced as i think everyone knew maybe we could have got closer.

The players let us down in f.a. Cup and Pep in champs league. All in all it hasn't been good or poor, its just been meh (very vanilla). Personally I do think gundogan is peps kryptonite. He can't help himself not to pick him. We won't win the champs league until he leaves. Great player, nice bloke but doesn't suit our teams fluid dynamic.
 
Thing is, we have developed into a formidable club who are geared up to compete on all fronts, not to pick and choose, rest players, play the kids, disrespect certain competitions and target one trophy like other so called big clubs regularly do..

It's a major talking point within the media if we don't win everything all the time which is just unrealistic..

Unrealistic or not, it doesn't stop the cnuts jumping on the bandwagon to give us a kicking when we lose though, the twats..

The league was definitely decided before a ball was kicked..

FA Cup semi finalists, poor game when measured by our usual standards, can and did happen..

League Cup.. Winners

Champions League, qtr finalists.. One off game, didn't go our way. VAR controversy, missed chances against a quick, strong, motivated team..

By our high standards you could say we've underachieved but for me, seeing us lift silverware pretty much season on season is something to be extremely proud of..

Listen to the media, listen to other managers, listen to other players, we are used as a yardstick by everyone..

"Liverpool have beaten City to the league"

"Champions League favourites beaten"

"Arsenal overcome unbelievable odds to win "

"Brave Villa scare City in final defeat "

We are the benchmark for everyone both here and in Europe, that's where we are now..

We've come a long way in a relatively short space of time.. and we are here to stay for a while longer yet, hopefully..


Enjoy the ride, it's been brilliant so far..!
 
Depends wether your a glass half full or half empty kind of person , we are the only team to lift a trophy in front of our own fans this season , in fact we've lifted two trophies if you want to count the Charity Shield and both were great days out at Wembley , for all concerned...
If we win the league next season , then 19/20 will just be classed as an anomaly , what with teething problems for VAR and all the rule changes brought in because of Covid...
Lets be honest Liverpool have been exceptional this year , however if Van Dyke and Mane had been out injured for most of the season rather than Aymeric and Leroy , then chances are it would be us clear at the top , can Liverpool go another season playing the same team twice a week without injuries to key players ? they've been very "lucky" with injuries over the last 2 seasons , can their "luck" hold out for yet another season ? ...
 
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The stated aim of the club is to win all 4 trophies. We won 1 and were a poor second in the league. Unfortunately, it has to go down as a poor season but we are not a million miles away
 
Personally, I believe we failed to achieve our levels of previous success simply because most of the team lost their desire and hunger for success. Their bellies were too full of all the accolades, medals, cups and bonus payments received.

Take Liverpool. They came so close to winning the league last season that it upset every single player both physically and emotionally. Yes they won the CL but that was not their Holy Grail. It was the PL. So they played all season like their life's depended on it. I'm sure a few of the their team would have picked up injuries, but their desire and hunger coupled with the pain of coming so close to winning the PL drove them forward.

With us, our players thought they had won the title before a ball had been kicked. All we had to do was to turn up each week and the title would be ours. Let's face it, every pundit and newspaper said as much. So it must have been true!

However, by the time we had lost to Norwich at home. The realisation (by the players) we were not going to win the PL had set in. Yet we still failed to play with the same passion and desire as we did the previous season. We also had key injuries. We didn't have as many the previous season. When a key player was out, it was hardly noticeable. Then again we did have Kompany to drive, inspire and lead us from the from both on and off the field of play. I also think Arteta played a big part too.

I fervently believe this coming season the return of our passion, desire and hunger for success will return. regardless of who we buy to replace the outgoing players. Because the players will once again all have something to prove to themselves and to us all as fans.

I'm really excited about and looking forward to the new season. We have a number of ghosts to lay to rest. Namely beating Liverpool at their ground. Giving United a good beating and reaching the final of CL.

CTID
 
Nine losses in the Premier league (almost 25% of our games), terrible performance against Arsenal to lose the FA cup semi final and terrible performance against Lyon to lose the Champions League quarter final.

It all adds up to a poor season.
 
JoshH7611 said:
It's not been that bad. We've watched fantastic football, we've scored 100 plus goals, we've got to the quarter finals of the CL, Semi Finals of the FA Cup, finished 2nd in the league and we've won a trophy. It can be even worse.

Bad decisions in the transfer market cost us. We can't let that happen again.
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It's all relative. You've described some positives but for our clubs goals amd ambitions we have underperformed despite the goals, league cup and football. Im very hopeful for the season ahead. Just want to see the games in person.
 
Rascal said:
Has it been a poor season, a good season or an average season.

2nd in the league to a better team
Won the League Cup
FA Cup semi finalists
CL QF

On our day we are magnificent, but we have too many off days and on those days we don't grind out results we find ways to lose. Often we lose even though we have dominated games, created loaded of chances, missed loads of opportunities and been punished for our mistakes.
Last night was typical of our season, we were profligate again and got punished again. We were In the ascendency and Jesus and Sterling missed great opportunities, Lyon pump a ball forward and score on the break just like so many other times this season. Then Ederson fucks up and its game over. Football at the very top is very fine margins, we are an elite team and against other good teams it can happen. Its frustrating because we know we can be so much better. No football team has ever been perfect, because in football perfection is impossible and I think Pep's drive for perfection is actually a hinderance because its an unachievable aim. He is a footballing romantic brought up believing in the football of Cruyff. yet the football of Cruyff's Holland team whilst being magical and sublime never achieved winning the world cup because it lacked the pragmatism of Argentina and West Germany at that time.

It then becomes a question of principle, does he sacrifice his principles and be pragmatic or does he stick with what he believes, I think as fans we would like to see more pragmatism, but when he is pragmatic like last night when he alters the team to deal with an opponent we call for him to stick with his beliefs and play like we have done over the last few years. The key is finding a mix between pragmatism and principle.

We also have to accept that football is inherently a game of mistakes, every goal comes from a mistake because the perfect game of football would end 0-0 and it is the capacity of football to be prone to mistakes that makes it such a fascinating sport. You can be the most wonderfully gifted team on the planet but lose because of one mistake to a team that on paper shouldn't even be in the same league.

If you accept football is a game of mistakes then what you do is either try to eliminate the mistakes or take advantage of the other teams mistakes and that is where footballing philosophies come into play. The high press is used to create mistakes by the opposition, but it leaves you prone to mistakes at the back because you are invariably undermanned, the low block aims to eliminate mistakes at the back but means you have less mistakes upfront to capitalise on. You only have 10 players to decide which way you wish to approach the game and last night we were caught in the middle of being principled and pragmatic but it was mistakes that cost us because whatever approach you take its always mistakes that settle the game.

Can you eliminate mistakes? to a point yes I think you can but you cant eliminate every mistake and not every mistakes is taken advantage off because the other team makes mistakes too. Case in point is we induced mistakes from Lyon to create an open goal for Sterling who then somehow managed to balloon it over the bar. None of this was done on purpose its football and its why its so fascinating because it exposes human frailties and reminds us all of the time we also ballooned a great chance over from 5 yards out playing against the Dog and Duck third eleven.

I thought I would have a look at some stats for some seasons

Mancini title F93 A29 L5

Pellers Title F102 A37 L6

Pep title F106 A27 L2

last season F102 A35 L9

There is remarkably not much difference between the stats for any of those years apart from one obvious one, somehow we contrived to lose 9 games last season despite the stats not being that much different.

Conclusion is last season we got punished far more for our mistakes than in the other seasons, shit happens

I fucking love City, only us could beat the Spanish champions and CL KIngs and then lose to a team who finished 7th in the French Farmers league.

Don't ever change City.
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The manager we have and the squad , shite
 
No surprise Vinnie left and we have a poor season in comparison to last. The old guard had to leave. The players coming in are very talented but arent natural leaders or big game players like Vinnie, Yaya, Zaba etc. Pep doesnt like big personality players that challenge his authority. But we as fans neeed them. Suspect this coming season will have a very similar feel to last.
 
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