Having had half a day to ruminate on the game, it feels very typical of our labored performances this season.
Last season, Pep mentioned repeatedly how hard it was to try to win back to back Premier Leagues, because the English game is a 10 month slog against teams of all stripes, under weather of all stripes, with injuries and upsets constantly being thrown up into the mix. We did it. Barely, but we went on a ridiculous run to do it by 1 point against a team that only lost ONE GAME ALL SEASON...and that was against us, by 11 millimeters!
This season, with only one addition in the middle of the park, in one of the most important positions in the Pep scheme, was always going to be difficult, but when players started getting niggles, and two major knee injuries (to our best defender and one of the most impactful wingers in world football) occurred, it was clear that the planets were aligning against us...as our main rival got stronger and escaped any serious injuries.
I think most neutral observers can see that Liverpool are winning games they shouldn’t, while City are drawing games they should win and even throwing up losses to teams that seemed unthinkable over the last two seasons.
City players look tired. Bored? Unenthused? Stuck in a rut?
Is the problem that now the players have learned Pep’s system, there is nothing new to help get them over humps? No lucky breaks coming their way? One niggle too many? I don’t know for certain, but it looks like we need something new, some energy from somewhere, some impetus from somewhere that appears to not being in the horizon.
From here, for me, it is about keeping it all together, making sure that fissures don’t appear or get magnified out of control, and that City take care of the business they need to do this January and Summer.
“The Project” has been, to a large degree, been completed, and from here it needs to be sustainable. To be sustainable against opponents who themselves are unwilling to standstill, are improving, and are injecting energy and vigor into their game as we appear to be unwinding, takes money and a very detailed, future-based, approach to the improvements necessary.
In ice hockey, there is a saying that the player is good not because he is always where the puck is, but where the puck is going. Likewise, we need to leap over where the puck is and quickly skate towards where the puck is going.You can call Klopp’s approach to football anything you want, but when it blunts the supposed most beautiful football in the world, and beats it regularly, then HE had already skated to where the puck was going to be in 2018/19, but missed it by a second. However, by this season, that team and squad was absolutely where the puck was heading, and we were still skating around celebrating being “Fourmidable!”
This season is now about Top 3, picking up some domestic silverware, and WINNING THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. If we don’t win the CL this season, possibly next, I honestly think we can write it off for another few years as the squad gets rebuilt around the core of what we have and the younger players coming through.
Hard to believe all of that flows from a 2-2 draw away at a place where we lost last season and still won the League, but it is simply the cherry on the icing on a cake that pales in comparison to what we have been feasting on for the last few years. We have been spoiled, but have come to like being spoiled, which means it feels a little jarring to be told “no more cake!”
This, too, shall pass, and shouldn’t even last too long, but it will be painful to watch Liverpool pick up where we left off, Spurs bouncing back under Mourinho, and maybe even Chelsea become a threat yet again under Lampard’s kids this season. It’s not the end of the world, only the ending of an era of 10 years of unbelievable growth.
From here, City as a club (and team) needs to mature into what “The Project” was supposed to become. The recent investment from America appears to indicate the future is a strong one, but business takes place in the boardroom, while the football, which pays for it all, has to be done on the field. Let’s hope that is where the focus is kept, and where the time, effort and money is now spent to reinvigorate this squad.
The Future is Blue.
