OK, let's be realistic

[Gundoggin]

I’m still happy. This is just a natural, very overdue, dip.

By rights we didn’t have the squad to win the league in 2022-23. I thought we were lacking in depth in midfield, but almost every single player stayed fit and were all bang in form from February onwards. Until De Bruyne went off in the CL final, Rodri, Gundo and De Bruyne didn’t miss a beat for months and performed at a level I’ve not seen from many other midfields ever before in the sport. If Rodri and De Bruyne had been out like they have in the last 18 months between them, we probably wouldn’t have won a thing that season, such was the lack of midfield depth. Yet they stayed fit and we did something special and won the PL, FA Cup and CL.

By rights we didn’t have the squad to break the record fourth league title in a row last season. We had a small squad still, smaller than 2022-23, yet we won the Super Cup, Club World Cup and did break that record and won the PL.

We’ve done better than our depth in quality should have in the last two seasons. David Silva and then Fernandinho leaving left our midfield very thin on the ground, especially last season n’all losing Gündoğan. If we’d won the PL in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and then not again for the last two seasons, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But we did win the PL and have actually won two trebles, or six trophies over the two seasons.

Now the drop off has come and it’s been very long in the pipeline and completely expected for me. It’s come as no surprise at all. However, I’m happy as Larry still because we will learn a lot from this season as a club and will hopefully rectify things on what we’ve learnt.

Excellent post .
The reality for us now is that we do have significant funds to spend to rebuild the squad and elite people running our club . We are in an identical situation the rags found themselves in over a decade ago we *MUST NOT* follow the path they took and I don’t for one minute expect us to just look at the state of them now . Our owners and Pep are our rock right now we have to endure this season’s pain , it will probably get worse before it gets better but next summer will be like a new beginning with the best people available to start a new era all over again.

 

[blue whippet]

Oh great, another thread on the same topic of us being shite. Just what we need.

Yes we do do with them all merging, ' the rot, a crisis?, and realism'. It's hard keeping track of them all!

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

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.

He's found his mojo again! I forecast a hat trick v The Toffees, just as long as the defence can cope with DycheBall!

 

[salfordbluetrue]

This season is the season I was expecting last season ! So I'm not surprised.
We could argue that the club should have reinforced better in the summer but would 3 or 4 new players hit the ground ? Most take 12 months to get Pep.

Pep looks tired, the squad looks tired and is tired. You can see that their minds aren't working as quick as normal by the mistakes that are being made.

Fans turning on the team is a disgrace. Even in my WhatsApp group people are slagging of these players. I find it embarrassing and dont post much nowadays.

With the dramatic drop off now comes the rumours that City are about to be relegated etc etc.

It's a perfect storm for the press/media and rival fans. Some of our fans are also being drawn into it.

Me same as ever put my City gear on when going out, car still has City stickers, still have my tattoos, my work station still has City's flag, my picture of Noel and me at Brighton lol, my City flag is still flag in my garden.

CTID

Do not know why City went into the summer market like they did, and i do not believe anybody else does.
So going into this season i did not think City had a hope in hell of winning the league. The make up of City meant that the injury to Rodri and to a lesser extent Bobb was catastrophic, at that point staying in touch with the top four was going to be an achievement, we have done just that, so while i am frustrated with results i still think we produce great football, just not to the same volume.

 

[crossie]

What would help, and the only thing within our power right now is to support the fucking club. We can easily boost confidence and energy in the players by 25% at home and away games. Moaning and being quiet in games is the opposite of what is needed. We need Hamburg style atmospheres weekly.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

I’m still happy. This is just a natural, very overdue, dip.

By rights we didn’t have the squad to win the league in 2022-23. I thought we were lacking in depth in midfield, but almost every single player stayed fit and were all bang in form from February onwards. Until De Bruyne went off in the CL final, Rodri, Gundo and De Bruyne didn’t miss a beat for months and performed at a level I’ve not seen from many other midfields ever before in the sport. If Rodri and De Bruyne had been out like they have in the last 18 months between them, we probably wouldn’t have won a thing that season, such was the lack of midfield depth. Yet they stayed fit and we did something special and won the PL, FA Cup and CL.

By rights we didn’t have the squad to break the record fourth league title in a row last season. We had a small squad still, smaller than 2022-23, yet we won the Super Cup, Club World Cup and did break that record and won the PL.

We’ve done better than our depth in quality should have in the last two seasons. David Silva and then Fernandinho leaving left our midfield very thin on the ground, especially last season n’all losing Gündoğan. If we’d won the PL in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and then not again for the last two seasons, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But we did win the PL and have actually won two trebles, or six trophies over the two seasons.

Now the drop off has come and it’s been very long in the pipeline and completely expected for me. It’s come as no surprise at all. However, I’m happy as Larry still because we will learn a lot from this season as a club and will hopefully rectify things on what we’ve learnt.

Absolutely agree with every word of this.
I dislike comparing us to the rags in any way, shape manner or form, but last season's PL triumph does remind me a bit of theirs in 2012-13. There's no way on earth they should have been winning that title. We dropped off and handed it to them, when we should have kicked on from 2011-12. And nobody else stepped in to give them a run for their money. That was one of the poorest, if not the poorest, team to win the PL in the last fifteen years. Unlike them, however — and it's a big difference — we were pushed, and pushed hard, by Liverpool and Arsenal, both worthy teams. Our triumph did turn on both teams losing one match, totally unexpectedly. And don't forget that we dragged ourselves — and it really was dragging, just watch that Chelsea semi-final if you doubt me — to a final that we were out for the count for. We came quite close to doing a double, when we should have been what we are this season.
The effort these players have made, for themselves, for Pep, for the owners, for us, has been nothing short of superhuman. Hundreds of matches in which, match after match, they've run more kilometres on the pitch than the opposition. I salute them.

 

[Shazza458]

If they can find a run of form from somewhere, get a boost from Jan signings - I think top4/5 is a possibility.

Admittedly we are terrible currently but you don’t need to be that amazing to get top 4. Worst case scenario is us being 7th by the end of the weekend. Look at the run of form we’ve been on, we’ll still be close to teams around us.

Whichever way you look it, not getting CL football next season would represent an incredible failure from the club. They will take the hit financially and it will likely impact transfer plans.

They will probably look back on last summer and it accept it was probably one of the worst decision of the Mansour era to not do business.

Standing still is the equivalent to regressing in elite football.

 

[M23 Citizen]

You seem to be more observant than the people running city. If Joe public could see that last season we were an accident waiting to happen why didn't you bypass the forum and send your observation direct to Trixi bolloks at headquarters.

We all did.

Loads of people throughout our support said that they were expecting a drop-off last season after the exploits of the treble.

Then when Rodri was out of the team (three games at Wolves, Arsenal and Newcastle for his red card against Forest, and Villa for his accumulation of bookings) we lost every single game.

De Bruyne got injured in the first game of last season and we didn’t see him until January. This time last year we had just 35 points at Christmas, just 8 more than we have at Christmas this season despite us winning just 1 in 12.

Every man and his dog knew and pointed out that we needed to bolster the midfield. Yet we didn’t. So this was inevitable. Even if the rest of the team were playing well, our midfield hasn’t had enough strength in depth of quality for a few years, so having no Rodri all season and De Bruyne struggling with injuries is our best two players not in our engine room running the show.

In 2018-19 we lost Fernandinho for the most part of the run-in and we didn’t notice, in 2020-21 we lost De Bruyne for most of the Winter and we didn’t notice… such was our strength in depth of quality.

At one point we had a midfield of: Fernandinho in his 30s was as good as any 27 year old in his prime in his position in world football, David Silva in his 30s was still almost good as any attacking midfielder in world football, De Bruyne was the best midfielder in the world, Bernardo Silva was the hardest working player covering more ground than anyone anywhere, Gündoğan was arguably better than all midfielders outside City in the PL yet he was our third best attacking midfielder, Rodri at 24 was an up-and-coming player.

Compare that to our midfield depth in the 2022-23 and 2023-24: okay, yeah De Bruyne, Rodri and Gündoğan all at their best… then an up-and-coming Foden who’d never really played in midfield since his youth team days and Kalvin Phillips, then last season Kovačić and Nunes.

In 2022-23 Rodri played 56 games, De Bruyne played 49 games and Gündoğan played 51 games… and that’s why we won’t be treble because they all played all the games we needed them to and we didn’t have to rely on our lack of depth there. If we had had to, we wouldn’t have won the treble.

Then, as I said, we struggled up to Christmas last season without De Bruyne and when Rodri was out of the team. If we’d had to rely on our poor depth in midfield in April last season, say, if Rodri had got another three game ban and/or De Bruyne had got injured again, we wouldn’t have won the title.

It’s hardly revelatory what I pointed out.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Look on the bright side. Imagine being able to sing "Relegated as champions, you'll never sing that" to opposition fans.

 

[Blue Maverick]

We all did.

When Rodri was out of the team last season (three games at Wolves, Arsenal and Newcastle for his red card against Forest, and Villa for his accumulation of bookings) we lost every single game.

And everyone said that we needed to bolster the midfield. Yet we didn’t. So this was inevitable, even if the rest of the team were playing well, our midfield hasn’t had enough strength in depth of quality for a few years.

Everyone could see we needed recruitment and then we didn’t replace Alvarez! I said at the start of the season we wouldn’t win the title possibly the CL because it’s roll of the dice, the last 7 years as a supporter have been exhausting apart from the 100 points nearly every title has come down to the wire, it’s been exhausting to watch, Christ that Spurs game last season was horrendous especially when Son went through, can you imagine playing in thise games knowing the tiniest mistake could lose you the title, Akanji should’ve bought Ortega a huge Xmas present for that save alone. The board should’ve seen all this last season was an overachieving year the team were on fumes, had we beat Madrid we wouldn’t have won the league, so you have a word with Pep and increase squad size or you buy and sell others to refresh the squad, we did neither, that’s on them.