Not sure about leadership on the pitch - Kompany is obviously a good captain, Zaba, too, Hart perhaps.
But as a squad we are still a long way away from having the kind of mentality you see at other top sides across Europe. We lack drive on the pitch, we lack the hunger to go out and play with real intensity week in, week out - you only need to look at the Chelsea game, for example, when every player was obviously up for it and we were fantastic, and compare it to almost every other game this season, where we've never come close to matching that standard of performance/intensity of play.
Real top sides play, if not at exactly that level (there's always an edge in 'big' matches'), then at least at a comparable level in the majority of matches. We don't. A lot of the time, the sheer quality of the players sees us through; when those players aren't performing to their best, we have problems, as we're seeing now.
Going in to the season, I would have hoped that the entire squad would have come out with real determination to defend the title and prove to everyone that we're the best side in the country - a 'no-fucker-is-going-to-take-our-title'-attitude. Instead, we've been, pretty much from the get-go, half-assed in almost everything we've done.
There's still obviously every chance we can win the title - Chelsea are nowhere near as good as they are being made out to be. But it will take a huge collective effort and I'm just not convinced that this group of players have got the hunger and desire to make it happen. Here's hoping I'm wrong.
