Missing the title by?

[Damocles]

My support is wholehaearted and vocal whether we win well, struggle or lose badly.

What I want is for the fans to have a winning mentality as well and not a panic, knee jerk response to every result.

Admitedly we all have off days and see things more bleakly than we should but over the season we cannot argue with what we will have acheived in this season of change.

Next year we will be in the top 4 from start to finish.

But aren't you just having a knee-jerk reaction to the result yesterday thinking that we are now world beaters?

I'll give you one thing, I very rarely see you criticise the manager and the players, and we seem to have similar definitions of "support". I was always told 'never boo a blue' and I never will, Mancini has my 100% support, just as Hughes did. I will never boo City players, even if they somehow deserve it.

One of the crying shames about this season, and something that will be overlooked by everybody in the short term, is just how absolutely huge of an achievement it is for us to reach the top four, if we do. This isn't a 'likkle Ciddy' thing, moreover a show of respect to Hughes/Mancini, Cook/Marwood/Al-Mubarak about how far we have come in such a short space of time. People said it was impossible to build a team within a year, and for better or for worse, this is exactly what we have done. This is an immense achievement on its own. Going from tenth to fourth is HUGE, no matter what club you are, or how much you have spent. You can guarantee that I'll be clapping the boys off against Spurs, no matter the result of this season or the game - we have to be proud of the speed of the progress.

My point though, is that this type of progress is a huge deal, we cannot expect to just go and challenge for the title next season. I'd love it if we did, but I see this season's progress as a one off rather than the norm. Maybe I'm wrong, I certainly hope so.

 

[blumoonrisen]

Mathematically we can still win it this season...

 

[fbloke]

My support is wholehaearted and vocal whether we win well, struggle or lose badly.

What I want is for the fans to have a winning mentality as well and not a panic, knee jerk response to every result.

Admitedly we all have off days and see things more bleakly than we should but over the season we cannot argue with what we will have acheived in this season of change.

Next year we will be in the top 4 from start to finish.

But aren't you just having a knee-jerk reaction to the result yesterday thinking that we are now world beaters?

I'll give you one thing, I very rarely see you criticise the manager and the players, and we seem to have similar definitions of "support". I was always told 'never boo a blue' and I never will, Mancini has my 100% support, just as Hughes did. I will never boo City players, even if they somehow deserve it.

One of the crying shames about this season, and something that will be overlooked by everybody in the short term, is just how absolutely huge of an achievement it is for us to reach the top four, if we do. This isn't a 'likkle Ciddy' thing, moreover a show of respect to Hughes/Mancini, Cook/Marwood/Al-Mubarak about how far we have come in such a short space of time. People said it was impossible to build a team within a year, and for better or for worse, this is exactly what we have done. This is an immense achievement on its own. Going from tenth to fourth is HUGE, no matter what club you are, or how much you have spent. You can guarantee that I'll be clapping the boys off against Spurs, no matter the result of this season or the game - we have to be proud of the speed of the progress.

My point though, is that this type of progress is a huge deal, we cannot expect to just go and challenge for the title next season. I'd love it if we did, but I see this season's progress as a one off rather than the norm. Maybe I'm wrong, I certainly hope so.

Would it have been different if I had posted prior to the Burnley game?

I didnt post because of the result but I did post because of something I thought about for next season.

As you say getting where we are from where we were has been impressive and proven some of the nay sayers wrong.

Why not the same next season?

 

[Damocles]

I don't really have a good answer for that, apart from something along the lines of "Lightning doesn't hit the same place twice", which even I know is bullshit. Maybe I am just a tired, negative City fan.

I suppose we could again have a year of huge achievement, but I would prefer to expect a good season and be happy, than a great season and be disappointed.

 

[moomba]

Going from tenth to fourth is HUGE, no matter what club you are, or how much you have spent. You can guarantee that I'll be clapping the boys off against Spurs, no matter the result of this season or the game - we have to be proud of the speed of the progress.

I see it more as going from 9th to 4th in two years.

Still pretty good going, last season was just a disaster in a lot of ways but finishing 4th this season will go a long way to a full recovery from that setback.

 

[Bluemoon115]

Look at points we shouldn't have dropped:

Hull at home: 2
Burnley at home: 2
Fulham at home: 2
Liverpool at home: 2 (They were there for the taking)
Bolton away: 2
Hull away: 3
Everton at home: 1 (at least)

All points that with a bit more work ethic and teamwork we could have gained, which would have resulted in 73 points.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we deserved more from the performances, but more those were matches that we should have looked at beforehand and thought we'd get those points out of.

We are close, and with a bit of pre-season work, we can challenge for the title next season.

 

[schtipps]

Im not getting too carried away with it all. Its been a good season for us so far which has exceeded my expectations. Im happy that the side looks as though it has now started to gel and everyone is fighting for each other. We now have a great nucleus to a team who are only going to get better.

 

[mammutly]

Seven points from 7 games in October and November - relegation form - cost us the chance to compete for the title this year.

When you look at those fixtures now, we dropped 8 to 10 points that we would now be pretty sure of getting. That would have put us in touchinig distance with decisive fixtures still to play.

I don't think we would have won the title this year had Mancini been brought in earlier, but I do think we'd have been close, solid top 4 and no doubt.