I had three main targets for City to aim for this season:
1) Confirm a top 4 finish before the final day
2) Get the good vibes back at the club and maybe develop a new system
3) Make a better showing of ourselves in the cups
All on target so far.
I've said it many many times in the last few months and I'll say it again: if 24-25 was a repeat of Pellegrini's final season then 25-26 is likely going to be a repeat of Pep's first season. Lots of new players and lots of new ideas, which means lots of good games overall but a few really bad days at the office while things are figured out. When we beat Forest 2-1 I couldn't believe how far ahead of schedule we seemed, and thought we might be in a title race after all, but since then we've just had a harsh reality check that we're not the finished article yet.
Think about it, though. 15-16 and 24-25 were both hampered by old players, a soft centre, a fragile mentality, and the old spine struggling a bit. Back then, Hart was coming to the end, Kompany was injured, Yaya was old, Silva was injured, and only Aguero was fit. In 2025, Ederson had checked out, Dias was injured a lot, Rodri was injured for the whole season, De Bruyne got old, and only Haaland was fit. It took us three transfer windows to sort things out back then and 16-17 was largely a wildcard season while Pep figured out what his new team was going to look like. All those new ideas and all those new faces needed time to bed in and for things at City to become habitual for them. That's where we are again now. I'm willing to give Pep another 12 months, just to see what the team looks like once it's steady and stable and isn't changing every few weeks.
We won't catch Arsenal, but we were never going to catch Arsenal. I've said since the summer, the title is theirs. They're a few years into their cycle and are hitting the crest of a wave at the right time. Liverpool are still in the post-Klopp hangover, Villa won't be up for the challenge, and City are rebuilding. Well done to Arteta for getting it right at last. For City, this year was just about improving on last year (which we already have), getting the good vibes back, and trying to put something in place that we can build from. Those building blocks are only just being put into place, so we're going to have to suck up the bad days until those blocks are set.
This season will probably click in March, like 16-17 did. We'll be too far away from Arsenal to catch them in the league but we'll likely finish 2nd on about 78-79 points. That's fine by me. We'll probably have reached yet another cup final (providing we don't lose 2-0 or more to Newcastle) and we'll hopefully still be in the FA Cup by then. With that in mind, this season still has the potential to be a great one. I don't know if people got a bit giddy about us being in a title race (we weren't) and are now disappointed, but all I wanted out of this season was clear improvement on last season and we have that. For that reason, I'm not too sad about the current state of affairs.
It's worth remembering right now that we finished 2025 top of the PL annual table (based on points per game, 2.16). We don't get a trophy for that, of course, but we should take a lot of heart from it. Despite the difficulties of last season and the injuries of this season, we still managed to be the best team in the country over a 12 month period. For a club on the way back to the top, that's something to hold onto and build from. We'll have weeks like this one again soon, it's just about riding the wave until we're back at the top - whether that's under Pep or somebody else. I'm kinda thinking it'll be Pep until 2027 and then Enrique. But let's see.
