OK, let's be realistic

[Eric Hitchmough]

Great post oakie. I've just posted something similar on a WhatsApp group There's no one person to blame for this it's a collective failure from top to bottom. In the boardroom, the executive suite, Pep and the players.

• CFG is one. It's Soriano's vanity project and I believe has diverted attention from things that should have been done to keep us at the top. The cost is high and the benefit minimal.
• City is the jewel in the crown of CFG but we don't have a dedicated CEO or COO, while the other clubs have theirs, who are solely focused on one club. How many clubs are Soriano and Roel de Vries focused on?
• Txiki Begiristain has seemingly been counting the days to retirement. Our recruitment has been sub-par for a club with our ambition and stature.
• One clear failure was not being ruthless after the CL final. A focused approach would have seen that the squad was getting older, and maybe needed some younger, hungrier players taking the place of those who had won everything and were in the latter years of their careers. Yet we're still watching players like KDB & Stones struggling for fitness, Walker losing his pace and any resemblance to a defender. Bernardo is strolling through games, producing nothing. We don't have a left back so we're reduced to playing Nunes.
• Pep has to take a lot of the blame. His insistence on a small squad has meant injuries have killed us and even when fil, players are being run into the ground, leading to more injuries. They're not getting time to recover.
• Pep has turned us from a team that played the fast, incisive, one-touch football we played in 2017/18 and the following seasons, into the plodding, painful shambles we are now, with no organisation, intensity, accuracy or pressing. Teams, even average teams, play through us so easily. Does he have any answers? It doesn't look like it, as he can't seem to pick the players up or getting them playing anywhere near to the standard they should be. Perhaps the players have lost faith in him, or he has lost his mojo. Either way, we can't carry on like this.
• And then there are the players. We've seen players lose form and confidence temporarily but others have shouldered the burden until they've recovered. But no one seems to have any confidence or shows any leadership. The players all used to know where their teammates were, where they needed to be and what they needed to do. Now they're a disorganised shambles and no one is ever in the right place. They're making schoolboy errors. Our pass accuracy used to be incredible but now we can't seemingly find a blue shirt. Rather than being a well-drilled unit, we're eleven scared individuals.

This isn't a blip, or just needs a bit of a refresh to put things back to where they were. It's a full-scale crisis that needs some radical and long-term thinking. Khaldoon needs to bang some heads together and shake things up. And if that means some senior executives, coaching staff and players bear the brunt, then so be it.

Fantastic post.

 

[Sk@mcfc]

I was expecting us to struggle this season but not to the extent of the last 6 weeks I’m lucky I’ve seen us shit but the 16 to 25 year olds don’t know any different to us being the best and there struggling with it I’ve seen it first hand today a few of them were properly down and I just had to reassure them we will be back

 

[madloaf]

I have always envisioned a ‘fall from grace’ like this was possible because it’s commonplace in English football.

Go back through the history books and look at Champions and what has happened to them.

City alone:
1936-37 Champions… relegated in 1938.
1967-68 Champions… 13th in 1969.
2017-18 Champions with 100pts, 2018-19 Champions with 98pts with an incredibly tough title run-in… out of the title race in November and finished on 81pts in in 2019-20.
2020-21 we nearly did a treble, 2021-22 Champions with another incredibly tough title run-in, 2022-23 treble winners, 2023-24 four-in-a-row record breakers… and what we’re witnessing this season as a drop-off.

This drop-off should not be a surprise. Even if everyone had been fit, I’d imagine we’d have had a drop-off this season.

In just my lifetime there’s been:
Villa 1980-81 Champions… 11th (granted with a EC win) in 1982
Arsenal 1989-90 Champions… 9th in 1991, 13th in 1992
Leeds 1991-92 Champions… 17th in 1993
Blackburn 1994-95 Champions… 7th in 1996
Newcastle 1995-96 2nd and 1996-97 2nd… 13th in 1998
United 2012-13 Champions… 7th in 2014
Chelsea 2014-15 Champions… 10th in 2016
Leicester 2015-16 Champions… 12th in 2017
Chelsea 2016-17 Champions… 5th in 2018
Liverpool finished 2nd on 97pts and won the CL in 2018-19, won the PL with 99pts in 2019-20… 3rd on just 69pts in 2021
Liverpool finished 2nd on 92pts and a CL final in 2021–22… finished 5th on 67pts in 2023.

What City are doing this season is completely normal in English football.

Not if we stay on 27pts!

 

[Eebo]

It’s simple. Teams have figured out how to play against a Pep system. They have had years to look at how to counteract it and have found a system that works against us. Every game is now the same, we have the ball, they pack the defence, we create little, as we are risk averse, they counter and we look exposed. It started working more for opponents last season but we managed it, this season, with the injuries and lack of form it’s working for them more often or not. With the types of players we have available, especially their physical characteristics, i can’t see how Pep can change the approach we have. There is not enough mobility, strength and pace through the midfield. Pep needs to do something different though as his control approach is not offering control and is just not working anymore

Watching today this just didn't look anything like City of previous years. I've always been frustrated by our desire to let every opposition player get back behind the ball before we go forwards, but now there is no injection of pace or slick passing football to get through that low block, and without Rodri we are incredibly vulnerable against the counter attack.

As I understand it we let them all get back to avoid a breakdown in transition/counter attack leaving us out of position, but now we look completely pedestrian, Haaland has no room to work in, and no-one commits to getting up to support him for fear of the break. We pass it around until we lose posssession and then we still look incredibly exposed every time the opposition breaks. All they have to do is run fast and pick the timing of the pass and our midfield and defence are beaten.

We know Rodri is the best midfielder in the World and we are bound to miss him, but we managed ok for a while so it feels like there must be something else.
Something behind the scenes?
Total lack of confidence/energy/desire/leadership?
Have the players lost faith in Pep's plans?
It looks like United were last year - you can see the players are following instructions to the letter but it looks like their hearts are not in it and they are not committing to it or taking responsibility to make it work, or they can't do what they are being asked to.
I'd love to see a proper informed analysis of what the problem is,a nd whether Pep has changed anything tactically ver these last few weeks.

 

[PistonBlue]

The most worrying aspect for me is the absolute lack of any sort of fight. It’s like the fire has gone out, and with it has gone the passion. We’re going through the motions, we don’t anticipate danger and by the time we react it’s too late. Not to pick on any one player but I genuinely thought Guardiol was playing with his eyes closed for the first 5-10 minutes, he was that bad. Our attack is lacking ideas and creativity.
But it’s the mentality that worries me, because there’s a reason the fire has gone out. It could just be the mental fatigue of the last four glorious seasons catching up, it could be the injuries, or that tactically we’ve been found out. It could be all those things. Or it could be something more sinister. Whatever the reason we need a solution quick, because this is relegation form and unthinkable as it might be, this team doesn’t have the fight in them for that sort of struggle .

 

[Chippy_boy]

I don`t think anyone could see this fall from grace so quickly and its been a shock to the system for one and all.
I don`t blame individuals as IMO I believe its been a collective thing from the Powers That Be in the corridors of The Etihad, Coaches and the Players.
Lets just stand back for a while and take stock of how and why this has happened. Obviously the main problem has been injuries and long term ones for quite a few players but Rodders is the main problem as its near impossible to find anyone like him currently. Pep for whatever reasons has kept faith with some of "old brigade" for too long now so both himself and Txiki are culpable of not strengthening the squad, certainly this season.
Its certainly come back to bite Pep on the arse with using a small squad. We then look at the roles of Soriano and our wonderful Khaldoon. Have they taken their eyes off what could happen and been too over confident ?
And finally the Players. Lets be honest and I would say that the majority of Blues were delighted with the return of Gundo at that time. Certainly I was.Players like Walker, KDB,Gundo and Stones, just to name but a few are possibly well past their sell by date, but we shouldn`t forget their loyalty and how they formed this wonderful team.
The drop of Phil Foden is alarming and that to could be said of Bernie plus the drop off can be said of young Lewis after some very promising performances last season. Two or three of our signings have been underwhelming and perhaps we bought in panic mode, who knows.
So finally we have been on a wonderful journey over the past 8 seasons or so and all good things must come to an end eventually. I think the majority of Blues knew this journey wouldn`t continue ... but by the same token I don`t think we thought we would end up falling off a cliff so rapidly.
Who knows what the outcome will be on this season but lets not forget that should we not reach those top 4 positions then we will lose out on attracting the top players.
Fingers crossed.

I’d add this: No-one sensibly expected us to win the league 6 times out of every 7 going forward. A drop off at some point was always inevitable, and so it has transpired.

However, whilst we don’t know just how far we may fall and for how long, what’s also clear is that we are a million miles from the club we once were, pre-Shinawatra. We now have a fantastic academy, a brilliant stadium, record revenues, no debt and grown ups running the club. We are a football superpower now. No run of poor results is going to change that. We will be challenging for titles every year for the next 20 years and beyond. In the scheme of things, this bad run is a bit of an irrelevance tbh.

 

[Paul1970]

When you win somthing every season it suddenly becomes the norm and the hunger goes because when you’ve won 6 titles are you really bothered about another . Every season Ferguson used to bring in fresh hungry players who where looking to become legends and he moved the old guard on which is somthing we have failed to do and now suddenly after a total clusterfuck if recruitment in the past 4 windows we are here where Man Utd were the last time they won the title . Pep is loyal to the hilt and you can if every game as he refuses to even bring him the kids even though the old guard are doing nothing . This team of legends is finished and we now have a mid table battle on to get anything because top 4 is not happening and champions league will be done after the next game . As for pep well we will never sack him but I think he walks within a month .

 

[Roachy]

When you win somthing every season it suddenly becomes the norm and the hunger goes because when you’ve won 6 titles are you really bothered about another . Every season Ferguson used to bring in fresh hungry players who where looking to become legends and he moved the old guard on which is somthing we have failed to do and now suddenly after a total clusterfuck if recruitment in the past 4 windows we are here where Man Utd were the last time they won the title . Pep is loyal to the hilt and you can if every game as he refuses to even bring him the kids even though the old guard are doing nothing . This team of legends is finished and we now have a mid table battle on to get anything because top 4 is not happening and champions league will be done after the next game . As for pep well we will never sack him but I think he walks within a month .

My biggest concern at the moment is other teams are showing more desire to win games. Coupled with the fact we're showing zero quality in virtually every area of the pitch, then it's a recipe for disaster.

 

[bluemurray]

I'm too long in the tooth regarding City to be anything other than sanguine about the current situation. It will never be as bad as 96-99 for fans of my generation regardless of what happens. As for the younger ones - or the hangers-on here and abroad - well welcome to the world of 'normal football' and our old friend 'same-old City'. Personally I'll lose no sleep about all of this... As for the 'Pep out' brigade, Alan Ball anyone..?

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

My biggest concern at the moment is other teams are showing more desire to win games. Coupled with the fact we're showing zero quality in virtually every area of the pitch, then it's a recipe for disaster.

But of course they're hungry. We've kept them starving for seven years, barring one (and then it was Liverpool and us second). And very often we took the “small” titles, F.A.Cups and League Cups, just for good measure. Furthermore, we've finished (temporarily — I repeat my conviction, temporarily) on a climax — a continental treble that only one other club (I forget who) has done in the entire history of the game, and then a fourth consecutive title which no-one else has done.
We have feasted. They have starved. Now we look slow and bloated. It will change, but it needs time to get hungry again.