The Title Race - 2023/24

How many points will be needed to win the league?

  • Total voters
    446
  • Poll closed .
chris85mcfc said:
Liverpool are not a great side by any stretch, and never looked like scoring until Palace went down to 10 men.

They're scraping wins at the moment, and some people say that's a good trait, but I actually don't see them improving anymore, and those wins will start becoming draws and defeats as the season goes on.

Salah is off to AFCON in a month and he'll be a huge miss for them, they don't have the same threat from any of their other forwards.

Still think if we can get our shit together and start winning games, we'll soon be back in pole position.
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Agree.
Salah is our Kev.
Wasn’t impressed with them when they played us and don't watch their other games.
It’s interesting this season.
 
Frankie lad said:
Agree.
Salah is our Kev.
Wasn’t impressed with them when they played us and don't watch their other games.
It’s interesting this season.
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It's making for an interesting season but I think the truth of it is everyone has dropped off this season except Villa. The overall quality of the league is as high as it has ever been, but there's no one close to where we have been in previous years, where Liverpool were a few years ago or even where Arsenal were this time last year. A lot of those players have played a lot of football in the last 3 years. If we can put even a 1/4 of a season getting anywhere close to where we have been in the past under Pep I think we will win it quite comfortably.
 
It might sound strange, but it seems that the main reason for frequent falls in the game, during the match itself and losing the lead, as well as the lack of consistency in the game, is actually that we don't have enough ball possession this season, unlike all previous seasons. The consequence of this is that we don't have control, i.e., we 'lose ourselves,' our identity, and our style, from which all other problems arise.

I love Alvarez a lot, both as a player and as a character, but it seems that he is the biggest problem in our possession; we lack that extra midfielder we always had to make things super stable

Pep era:

we average;

2016/17 597.5 passes per game , our opponents 255 (short ppg)
2017/18 743.2 ppg , opponents 230 (short ppg)
2018/19 699.3 ppg , opp. 270 sppg
2019/20 692.8 ppg opp. 294 sppg
2020/21 675 ppg .opp- 333 sppg
2021/22 687.7 ppg . opp- 271 sppg
2022/23 659.8 ppg . opp- 306 sppg
2023/24 629.3 ppg opp. 359 sppg

Statistically speaking, Pep's first season was the worst, but the current one is not much better. We simply allow other teams too much possession of the ball, which is frightening. In fact, except for the 20/21 season, it was the only case where we were not leaders in both categories - the most passes per game against opponents and the fewest passes conceded in a match. In all other seasons, we were absolute leaders in these statistics

Thank you, Dinho, Delph, Yaya, Gundogan, Silva, KDB. We miss you, guys


 
Brightwell Bros. said:
It's making for an interesting season but I think the truth of it is everyone has dropped off this season except Villa. The overall quality of the league is as high as it has ever been, but there's no one close to where we have been in previous years, where Liverpool were a few years ago or even where Arsenal were this time last year. A lot of those players have played a lot of football in the last 3 years. If we can put even a 1/4 of a season getting anywhere close to where we have been in the past under Pep I think we will win it quite comfortably.
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I actually bore a lot of people telling them I called this with top 6/7 all knocking lumps out of each other unfortunately City are part of it and I thought we would be sailing serenely above it all.
Nothing wrong with our players desire/hunger as I see it.I really think Pep will be relishing this but he has to be praying that chances are turned into goals more than of late and Rodri stays fit.
 
Gigant said:
It might sound strange, but it seems that the main reason for frequent falls in the game, during the match itself and losing the lead, as well as the lack of consistency in the game, is actually that we don't have enough ball possession this season, unlike all previous seasons. The consequence of this is that we don't have control, i.e., we 'lose ourselves,' our identity, and our style, from which all other problems arise.

I love Alvarez a lot, both as a player and as a character, but it seems that he is the biggest problem in our possession; we lack that extra midfielder we always had to make things super stable

Pep era:

we average;

2016/17 597.5 passes per game , our opponents 255 (short ppg)
2017/18 743.2 ppg , opponents 230 (short ppg)
2018/19 699.3 ppg , opp. 270 sppg
2019/20 692.8 ppg opp. 294 sppg
2020/21 675 ppg .opp- 333 sppg
2021/22 687.7 ppg . opp- 271 sppg
2022/23 659.8 ppg . opp- 306 sppg
2023/24 629.3 ppg opp. 359 sppg

Statistically speaking, Pep's first season was the worst, but the current one is not much better. We simply allow other teams too much possession of the ball, which is frightening. In fact, except for the 20/21 season, it was the only case where we were not leaders in both categories - the most passes per game against opponents and the fewest passes conceded in a match. In all other seasons, we were absolute leaders in these statistics

Thank you, Dinho, Delph, Yaya, Gundogan, Silva, KDB. We miss you, guys
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That bottom line is the issue.
Delph aside top notch,world class players that could not only keep the ball but play defence killing balls all day long and they could and can score.
God forbid when Kev goes how do you even start to try and replace that bloke?
Think teams are pressing more these days and taking chances so retaining that % of play might be something we cant enjoy as much.
 
Frankie lad said:
That bottom line is the issue.
Delph aside top notch,world class players that could not only keep the ball but play defence killing balls all day long and they could and can score.
God forbid when Kev goes how do you even start to try and replace that bloke?
Think teams are pressing more these days and taking chances so retaining that % of play might be something we cant enjoy as much.
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I think there's a cyclic problem. Opponents press more, and we beat the press but don't have the shark team feel to take advantage, and the ball goes back and we have to beat the same players we took out by beating the press. So teams are less fearful of our speed of attack (and counter-attack) so are less reluctant to press us at our end. They're more inclined to "have a go" than park the bus and rely on counter attack.

(We used to bang the ball forward at pace, and the receiving player seemed to know whether to play it back, hold it, or turn to face goal. So many times now we're shouting turn with it, but it goes back.)
 
Vic said:
I think there's a cyclic problem. Opponents press more, and we beat the press but don't have the shark team feel to take advantage, and the ball goes back and we have to beat the same players we took out by beating the press. So teams are less fearful of our speed of attack (and counter-attack) so are less reluctant to press us at our end. They're more inclined to "have a go" than park the bus and rely on counter attack.

(We used to bang the ball forward at pace, and the receiving player seemed to know whether to play it back, hold it, or turn to face goal. So many times now we're shouting turn with it, but it goes back.)
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Because Kev,silva,Gundo,Yaya could see and play that ball that made an attack into a chance instead of a back to the centre circle.
Now that is largely down to Phil to do all this creativity thing and too much pressure is now on the lad to unlock things personally instead of him being part of the machine.
 
Frankie lad said:
Because Kev,silva,Gundo,Yaya could see and play that ball that made an attack into a chance instead of a back to the centre circle.
Now that is largely down to Phil to do all this creativity thing and too much pressure is now on the lad to unlock things personally instead of him being part of the machine.
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We've been blessed to witness such greatness. Fantastic players.
 
It amuses me greatly that posters say that Kovacic and Nunes (who are both in their first season) aren’t adequate to replace Marhez and Gundogan (who were both widely berated in their first season with City).


Pep Guardiola is our manager. He knows what he’s doing. He will improve those players. It’s what he does, with one notable exception.

Maybe he’s earned a bit of slack?

He’s not infallible, but he’s surely got enough credits in the bank?
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
It amuses me greatly that posters say that Kovacic and Nunes (who are both in their first season) aren’t adequate to replace Marhez and Gundogan (who were both widely berated in their first season with City).


Pep Guardiola is our manager. He knows what he’s doing. He will improve those players. It’s what he does, with one notable exception.

Maybe he’s earned a bit of slack?

He’s not infallible, but he’s surely got enough credits in the bank?
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The concerning point for most here is that we have to win 20 of our remaining 23 fixtures to get 90 points. Other teams can drop more and still get to 90+.

So we've dug ourselves quite a hole with our performances of late. The rest is just assigning blame on whoever they don't like at that time for whatever reason.
 
Blue_Lightsaber said:
The concerning point for most here is that we have to win 20 of our remaining 23 fixtures to get 90 points. Other teams can drop more and still get to 90+.

So we've dug ourselves quite a hole with our performances of late. The rest is just assigning blame on whoever they don't like at that time for whatever reason.
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I'd be very surprised if 90 points are required this season. It's only happened twice in the PL era - our title wins in 2018-19 and 2021-22. For the runners up to get to 90, it needs to be a two horse race with third place a long way adrift and I just can't see this season panning out like that at all.
 
Blue_Lightsaber said:
The concerning point for most here is that we have to win 20 of our remaining 23 fixtures to get 90 points. Other teams can drop more and still get to 90+.

So we've dug ourselves quite a hole with our performances of late. The rest is just assigning blame on whoever they don't like at that time for whatever reason.
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No way is any team going to need 90 points to win the PL this season.
 
Frankie lad said:
Because Kev,silva,Gundo,Yaya could see and play that ball that made an attack into a chance instead of a back to the centre circle.
Now that is largely down to Phil to do all this creativity thing and too much pressure is now on the lad to unlock things personally instead of him being part of the machine.
Click to expand...
Is Bernardo not classed as being creative?
 
Blue_Lightsaber said:
The concerning point for most here is that we have to win 20 of our remaining 23 fixtures to get 90 points. Other teams can drop more and still get to 90+.

So we've dug ourselves quite a hole with our performances of late. The rest is just assigning blame on whoever they don't like at that time for whatever reason.
Click to expand...
Im not concerned at all....beat luton we're 4pts off the top with more than half a season still to play I wouldn't call that quite a hole really. Judging by some of the performances ive seen from teams currently above us in the table there isnt a single one i'd put money on finishing on 90+ points this season.....there have been some very average performances just watch liverpools last 2 games, both wins but looked very average in both games. We'll get our mojo back soon as we always do about this time and some very handy looking fixtures coming our way now that terrible run of league fixtures is done....can see us going on a mega run now I have every faith.
 
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