Laporte has not recovered well from injury. Neither has Mendy. I think Pep had a hard decision to make over left back, and eventually he possibly called that right by playing Cancelo there. It's Fernadinho, Gundogan and Rodri for me. That core is just stupid. You can't play those three in there and know it's not going to compromise us is very way.
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Has it been a good/poor season?
- Thread starter Rascal
- Start date
urban genie
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- 11 May 2008
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- 32,571
It's been a decent season, but poorer compared to the last two, not many teams will win a domestic double +100 points follw that up with a domestic treble and repeat the feats the season after, think only rags and scouser in their pomp won 3 titles in a row and tbh the season has been strange, who knows how the FA cup and last night would have panned out pre lockdown.
The fact this was Silvas last made the way the season has panned out seem more of a downer.
The fact this was Silvas last made the way the season has panned out seem more of a downer.
OrigamiNinja
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- Joined
- 10 Oct 2008
- Messages
- 9,618
It has been an awful season.
It all began with piss poor recruitment again. Not replacing VK was suicidal and smacked of arrogance. It was like we got 198 points over two seasons, so decided we’d do whatever the fuck we wanted and nobody would be able to stop us. Liverpool got 97 points, there was no margin for error.
Not winning the title can be forgiven, if you come up against a side that bags 99 points, it is always going to be almost impossible to top that. What cannot be forgiven, is this side going from 100 points, to 98 points to 81 points. That is a massive drop off in quality and shows that it was not some one-off fluke. Our regression meant that Liverpool were very rarely under pressure and it made their lives much easier. It’s a different game when you can go out on the pitch knowing that a loss or two won’t impact your season, as we found out in 2017/18.
Injuries didn’t help us, Laporte was a huge loss but the gaping hole next to him suggests it wouldn’t have mattered too much even if he had remained fit. Add to that our clear (or maybe not so clear given the sucking off Walker gets on here) problems at full back and our defensive issues were complete.
The midfield has gone from arguably the best midfield in football 2 years ago, to a complete and utter joke. We have replaced the best CDM in the world with a snail, towing a caravan, with a fridge freezer on his back. Although like Walker, there’s people on here who label Rodri world class. We’ve stuck with David Silva for the majority of the season despite his form being patchy at best. Bernardo Silva has been terrible. Gundogan has been Gundogan, fine against absolute dross opposition but you’d never want him in the trenches with you. Foden not played anywhere near enough. Thank the lord for KDB, without him that midfield is top 6 quality at best.
At the top end of the pitch we have Sterling with 30 goals, which is not to be sniffed at but he was absolute shite for 5 months in the middle of the season and his goals masked that somewhat. Aguero has done what we expect from him, scores goals at a per min ratio that others can only dream of but outside of the box the years are catching up with him. Jesus is a weird one, nothing wrong with his G/A return and I personally think we are a better team with him in it but there’s no escaping the fact he misses a lot of big chances. Mahrez plays for himself and has added nothing to this side.
You can’t have so many under-performing players, or those that aren’t good enough to begin with and expect to get the job done over a 38 game season.
You can sometimes get away with the above in cup competitions, especially this side, who on their day can destroy any opposition. We got the job done in the League Cup, no surprises there, we have a stronger squad and we take the competition more seriously than any other side. However, in the competitions that other sides take more seriously, our deficiencies and frailties have been there for all to see.
I think we have become predictable and relatively easy to play against. If you look at the majority of our league defeats and our cup exits to Arsenal and Lyon, they follow similar patterns. Opposition sit deep, pack the middle because our inverted wingers can’t go on the outside and let players they know can’t hurt them (Rodri, Gundogan, Walker) have plenty of the ball. Then the sucker punch of exploiting our high line and slow/shit defence.
Overall, it’s not been even close to good enough and Pep has to shoulder a lot of the blame. A drop off after the two previous seasons was almost inevitable but not to the levels we have seen. He along with a fair number of our fans, need to wake up and smell the coffee...certain players in this side are not good enough and collectively as a team, we are not good enough.
This summer is huge for us. Sign shite again and we will regress even further. Signing the likes of Ake to improve the squad is fine but unless we sign players who improve the starting XI we will be pissing in the wind next season.
It all began with piss poor recruitment again. Not replacing VK was suicidal and smacked of arrogance. It was like we got 198 points over two seasons, so decided we’d do whatever the fuck we wanted and nobody would be able to stop us. Liverpool got 97 points, there was no margin for error.
Not winning the title can be forgiven, if you come up against a side that bags 99 points, it is always going to be almost impossible to top that. What cannot be forgiven, is this side going from 100 points, to 98 points to 81 points. That is a massive drop off in quality and shows that it was not some one-off fluke. Our regression meant that Liverpool were very rarely under pressure and it made their lives much easier. It’s a different game when you can go out on the pitch knowing that a loss or two won’t impact your season, as we found out in 2017/18.
Injuries didn’t help us, Laporte was a huge loss but the gaping hole next to him suggests it wouldn’t have mattered too much even if he had remained fit. Add to that our clear (or maybe not so clear given the sucking off Walker gets on here) problems at full back and our defensive issues were complete.
The midfield has gone from arguably the best midfield in football 2 years ago, to a complete and utter joke. We have replaced the best CDM in the world with a snail, towing a caravan, with a fridge freezer on his back. Although like Walker, there’s people on here who label Rodri world class. We’ve stuck with David Silva for the majority of the season despite his form being patchy at best. Bernardo Silva has been terrible. Gundogan has been Gundogan, fine against absolute dross opposition but you’d never want him in the trenches with you. Foden not played anywhere near enough. Thank the lord for KDB, without him that midfield is top 6 quality at best.
At the top end of the pitch we have Sterling with 30 goals, which is not to be sniffed at but he was absolute shite for 5 months in the middle of the season and his goals masked that somewhat. Aguero has done what we expect from him, scores goals at a per min ratio that others can only dream of but outside of the box the years are catching up with him. Jesus is a weird one, nothing wrong with his G/A return and I personally think we are a better team with him in it but there’s no escaping the fact he misses a lot of big chances. Mahrez plays for himself and has added nothing to this side.
You can’t have so many under-performing players, or those that aren’t good enough to begin with and expect to get the job done over a 38 game season.
You can sometimes get away with the above in cup competitions, especially this side, who on their day can destroy any opposition. We got the job done in the League Cup, no surprises there, we have a stronger squad and we take the competition more seriously than any other side. However, in the competitions that other sides take more seriously, our deficiencies and frailties have been there for all to see.
I think we have become predictable and relatively easy to play against. If you look at the majority of our league defeats and our cup exits to Arsenal and Lyon, they follow similar patterns. Opposition sit deep, pack the middle because our inverted wingers can’t go on the outside and let players they know can’t hurt them (Rodri, Gundogan, Walker) have plenty of the ball. Then the sucker punch of exploiting our high line and slow/shit defence.
Overall, it’s not been even close to good enough and Pep has to shoulder a lot of the blame. A drop off after the two previous seasons was almost inevitable but not to the levels we have seen. He along with a fair number of our fans, need to wake up and smell the coffee...certain players in this side are not good enough and collectively as a team, we are not good enough.
This summer is huge for us. Sign shite again and we will regress even further. Signing the likes of Ake to improve the squad is fine but unless we sign players who improve the starting XI we will be pissing in the wind next season.
DenisLawBackHeel74
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- Joined
- 20 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 11,476
Piss poor season.
its normal for a team to go through periods of dominance and recession. We are in the latter part of the cycle and need to rebuild in key areas. The question is whether that rebuild includes the management. It very well could...
its normal for a team to go through periods of dominance and recession. We are in the latter part of the cycle and need to rebuild in key areas. The question is whether that rebuild includes the management. It very well could...
Blu3m00n91
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- Joined
- 19 Oct 2012
- Messages
- 3,451
It’s been a massively poor season by our recent standards. It puts huge pressure on us next season and I don’t think we’re prepared. Our level of performance is gonna half to be at least 50% better. I hope Pep gets it right but last night really pissed me off, could see it coming the second the team was announced.
No1 was Colin bell
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- 24 Feb 2013
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- 497
Silver lining here is the absolute kick in the arse it will give to recruitment In next few weeks. Spine of the great team Mancini started has gone and needs to be recreated. The next Kompany. The next Fernandinho. The next Sergio (who may not have more than one more brilliant season left). Am hoping Phil can step up for the magical Dave.
supersonicblue
Well-Known Member
Think 10 years ago we would’ve taken a season like this but look at us now and how far we’ve come. It still hurts as bad as before.
5 Hit Gibbon
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- 8 Jan 2020
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We lost too many games in the PL, especially to teams that with respect we shouldn't be losing too. Any team can have an off day or be on the end of a freak result, but it happened consitenly across the season. People kept saying that we would learn from it & move on, but then it would happen again. To be fair you could see in certain games a pattern, where you just knew that we weren't going to win after watching for about 20 mins.
It could have been a good season in the cups, but we put in awful performances in the FA Cup against Arsenal & in the CL last night.
The transfer window last year was poor IMO and has been again so far this year.
It could have been a good season in the cups, but we put in awful performances in the FA Cup against Arsenal & in the CL last night.
The transfer window last year was poor IMO and has been again so far this year.
hateutd
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Poor ,with many mistakes from Pep and almost the whole players....