This season hasn't, and by this club's standards, will never be good enough. Top 4 is not a trophy and is the bare minimum. However, I'm still optimistic and think Pep has ultimately been the victim of his own success. if you expected him to come in here and piss the league in his first season then that was ridiculously naive. He succeeded immediately at Barca and Bayern because they were clubs founded upon the 'serial winner' mentality. Bayern were always going to walk the Bundesliga, and Barca were Barca. We are City. Yes we have had success recently but I would hardly call us serial winners.
We, as a club, in my opinion, still don't have the mentality required to push on and win and win and win. It's all well and good coaching pretty football, but instilling a winning mentality is quite simply a luck of the draw. You need a few big games to go your way and get you over the line and we haven't got any of that luck this year. It's also pretty important to have players with that mentality in the team, of which we have few. Pep has never been at a club like ours before so it is somewhat unfair to hold him to the amazing standards he has produced at other clubs. For all we know, he could completely fail here and that will give us a better idea about him as a coach. However, if you watch City, you know he's good at his job. You look at his teams and you can see he has a plan. His fullbacks tucking in field are a good example, as well as his wingers usually cutting off half spaces off their wing as opposed to tracking the fullback directly.
People keep mentioning the big games as an issue, but my god, at least it's better than last year. Last year we were tepid as fuck. We would show up and pose no legitimate threat to any of the top 6, and they all knew it. This year though, we should have beaten pretty much all of the top teams at least once. Chelsea at home, for 60 minutes, I thought we were outstanding and made Chelsea look shit. Spurs at home, we battered them more than Chelsea and somehow (due to dodgy officiating) left with only a point. Liverpool we should have got something from as well. The away performances certainly need to improve, but if you look at any big team in the league this year (bar Liverpool) none of them win big away games. Chelsea have only won at the Etihad and Spurs haven't won away at any of the top 6.
For me, these games show we are more competitive than we were last year and it's a case of us not taking points because of our own errors, or refereeing and not because of the other team giving us a beating and I would certainly rather have that. Pep can't score goals himself unfortunately, and if he could, we wouldn't be where we are in the league. He has set us up, time and time again, to create a ridiculous amount of chances, but we haven't got the players to take them. We have drawn far too many games this year because we have only one player with any form of killer instinct in front of goal. Hopefully that will be rectified next year.
I certainly don't go along with every decision he makes. The switch to the back 3 from October to December was risky, and looking back, could have ultimately cost us the title. His substitution strategy also doesn't appeal to me. Not necessarily who he replaces, although I questioned it massively yesterday with Sane's burnout, but more so how late he leaves it in games to give the team a shift in energy. Particularly Spurs at home, we needed fresh legs to keep them getting back at us, but he just left it until they got a foothold and got level.
So, no he isn't a messiah and can make mistakes, but ultimately, there has been progress in my eyes. Not in the league table, which is a massive let down, but in our actual style of play, I always feel like we can go into a game now and have a chance to create against anybody because he will set us up as such. Pellegrini appeared to show up with the same style of play every week and expect a different result than the week before. We had one of our best Champions League performances under Pep against Barca at home and we put 6 past Monaco, whilst still missing a host worth of chances. Never again do I feel we will go into game like the Madrid semi-final last year and not lay a finger on an opponent.
We still have a few key hurdles to overcome next year, but what's good is that Pep knows it. At no point this year has he said we are good enough. Time and time again he has repeated that we are well off the standard he wants, even after our first 10 games. Hopefully, in the summer, we will bring in a few players who can put the ball in the back of the net and we can kill a game off before the one shot an opponent has takes 2 points off us.
Games like yesterday can often take the focus off the positives of this year and it's important to not forget those. Pep needs time, and he may need even more than next year, but I believe he has the ability to eventually turn us into a powerhouse. The recruitment this summer needs to be good for a fucking start, however.
