Has it been a good/poor season?

[Franny 1234]

Back in the Alan Fucking Ball Years I could of only dreamed of a league cup win and finishing second. But am spoilt now.
C.T.I.D.

 

[Gabriel]

A 6 out of 10 season, and that feels strange to say when we won a trophy, but we’re not in the 1970s now.

Too brittle mentally, too many players on contracts that offer nothing, and a defence that is a shambles.

Is there a site where you can see the line ups for every game listed next to each other? Not sure we’ve played the same back 4, same 11, too often.

 

[tonea2003]

poor, to lose 9 league games(12 overall) is not good enough for this squad of players

 

[1961_vintage]

A long way short of what it should have been.

 

[tonea2003]

Back in the Alan Fucking Ball Years I could of only dreamed of a league cup win and finishing second. But am spoilt now.
C.T.I.D.

yeah but that's like comparing a crab apple with a pink lady

 

[Col12]

Poor season, when you look at the number of defeats in the PL and which teams took points from us. Add to that getting knocked out of the cup competitions by Arsenal and Lyon..... as per my school report, should have done better and not achieving potential.

 

[thelongbowman]

When you have a team like that and go into every game wondering if you'll win its got to be a strange season.

I cant recall winning any big games apart from the first leg against united.

What a shit year

 

[Saddleworth2]

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.

Poor for a number of reasons, some of them not within our gift to fix.
VAR/Refereeing decisions
the ongoing battle with UEFA/Elite clubs/hateful eight/media
COVID
the manner of our losses and the teams that we lost to
VAR
oh, did I mention VAR/Refereeing decisions
Pep needs a break

Lets hope that the transfer window is a very good one as we need it to be.

 

[Semper aggressus]

Very underwhelming.

Poor defense of the title, occasional great performances but a lot of average, going through the motions.

Overall disappointing and personally think we have regressed.

Pretty much sums it up for me.

Too many players underperformed or just got too old, or injured.

Refresh needed; more pace and energy, and some leadership on the pitch.

Best result was the one v UEFA.

 

[lancs blue]

Not poor but definitely underwhelming. A few very good performances but also too many inadequate ones from such a squad.

More worryingly Pep at times this season reminded me of Pellegrini in his final season, odd team selections and a strange reluctance to change things when we were struggling.