This poor run is all on Pep now at this stage
It’s not though, is it?
Look at some of the PL winners and where they finished the season after, in the last decade:
In 2013 United won the league and then finished 7th in 2014
Chelsea 2015 Champions, 2016 10th
Leicester 2016 Champions, 2017 12th
Chelsea 2017 Champions, 2018 5th
City 2019 Champions, 2020 2nd (but 18 points behind 1st)
Liverpool 2020 Champions, 2021 3rd (but 16 points behind 1st)
Apart from City, nobody since United in 2007-08 and 2008-09 have retained the title. City also had a drop off in both 2012-13 and 2014-15. Despite finishing second, we didn’t
really challenge for the title in either season.
Look at 2019-20 - City had won the previous two PL titles with 100 and 98 points, including a domestic quadruple, and could not remain at the intensity and quality required for a third go at points at that level and got just 81 points in that season.
The same is happening now. City have won the previous four PL titles, including winning a quintuple, and this is the season where the drop-off is happening.
Have you seen the
Together: Four-In-A-Row documentary? Look at the intensity Pep demanded off those players to win that record fourth league title in a row. By all rights, last season should have been our drop off really. You could see it in the quality of performances we weren’t as good as the treble season, players looked tired, weren’t quite as ‘at it’, the only wins we got against any of the Top 5 were against a much depleted Villa at home and when we
really had to at Spurs. The rest, we didn’t beat Arsenal h/a, didn’t beat Liverpool h/a, lost away to Villa in the worst performance I’ve ever seen under Pep and drew at home to Spurs.
It was Pep and his hunger for that record fourth league title in a row that dragged us through last season. His intensity in the changing rooms and at training, so demanding of everyone.
The drop off this season was inevitable. You could see it the very next week after we’d won the title in the FA Cup final against United. The come down from the achievements of 2020-21 to 2023-24 had already started.
Add to that the injury situation we’ve faced this season. At Bournemouth, Brighton and Sporting every one of our senior defenders was injured, some had to play injured alongside teenagers. For all of Dias Aké Stones Akanji Gvardiol and Walker to be injured at the same time must be some sort of record. Three of them played against Bournemouth, all of them were limping in the second half, Aké had to leave the pitch.
Midfield is decimated. Our best players have been absent in Rodri and De Bruyne. Kovačić is injured, Foden was unwell and hasn’t got back to his best yet.
Up front Bobb Doku Grealish and Savinho have all been injured at various stages of the season so far.
The injury situation isn’t on anyone, it’s just one of those unfortunate things. Bournemouth were a solid midtable team under Howe, but in 2019-20 they had the most injuries ever seen in a PL season and they got relegated. You cannot legislate for injuries.
Others who aren’t injured have either been inconsistent or fucking bobbins, apart from Ederson and Haaland, who, without their August to October form, we would be in the bottom half of the table.
Pep’s not done much wrong really. He has to play players who are injured or out of form, he’s got no choice. He’s tried different tactics and the same thing has happened in all the games.
Add to that then that this team has come to it’s end. Txiki has even come out in the press and said that he should have started to rebuild the team in the Summer rather than next Summer. We have far too many old players and young players, and nowhere near enough players in the prime of their careers aged 24-29 (just 8 of the entire squad when we’ve seen as many as 15 at other stages).
It’s just an [im]perfect storm of a load of things going on at the same time, that’s seeing us drop/off. I’d probably say that Pep is bottom of the list of reasons though.
