The Title Race - 2024/25

How many points to win the league?

  • Total voters
    301
  • Poll closed .
We look a complete mess basically this season and if we win the league with this current squad I’ll be fucking amazed.

The charges thing looks like it’s weighing very heavily on the club.

We are lucky to be second given how bad we have been but I can’t this turning around quickly. Where is the leadership. It was completely missing today.
 
pavelsrnicek said:
Feels like 2016/17, Slot could easily do a Conte
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For me, it's more like 19/20 when we had bad injuries, aging legends and some players in bad form (like Stones).

Might be a long season, but I believe the young players can step up and save the season.
 
We need to get our act together after the past week, the past three games.

From now until May it has to be 'heads down, no nonsense mindless boogie' and nothing deflecting us from getting back to basics to rectify this awful run we've been on.

No swanning about now, no tweets or social media or memes about 'problems' or 'best intentions', just get on with it, do the dirty work and claw this all back.

As Judge Edward Parry once said of his adopted city over a century ago:

"For Manchester is the place where people do things… ‘Don’t talk about what you are going to do, do it.’ That is the Manchester habit."
 
Agree it's not been peak City but people do realise the players we're missing, how long there is to go and we have quality all over pitch. Every other team will be thinking City still the team to beat.

If we leave Klanfield at worst 2 points behind, it's very much on.

Got Kev to come back, Foden to find form, Bobb a new signing in 25, hopefully Stones finds a 15 game run, Jack to come back, Ake not been fit all season, Dias niggles.

Plenty of reasons to think we'll win league again.
 
pavelsrnicek said:
Feels like 2016/17, Slot could easily do a Conte win the league because the main rivals are in poor shape. Arsenal v Liverpool for the league. Can’t see us winning purely due to our utterly unbalanced squad.

We should really have started a rebuild of sorts last summer but find ourselves with a midfield of KDB, Gundogan and Silva all likely off this summer with question marks over Walker and Stones. Regardless we lack legs and physical presence in midfield and can’t fix that until January unless Pep is willing to gamble on youth.
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Arsenal’s average performance levels are lower than ours.
 
IronsideKozuch said:
Its super tough to have a ready made substitution for Rodri. You cant take top players, cause they wouldnt play second fiddle to Rodri. Same for Haaland. You think somebody pushed Alvarez away? No, he wanted to be a star, first team player at daily basis.

Our league position does not kid anybody. Its a fact. We have 3 pts from Chelsea away for instance, what is a great result and lets see how many our rivals got there. We won there without Rodri btw.

Tough games ahead, yeah, but for our rivals too. They gonna loose points as well.
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It’s a tough job getting standins for Rodri and Haaland - but that why Txiki gets paid handsomely.

We lost every game Rodri didn’t play last season. Not addressing this with new signings in the Summer was negligent.

Now cause of the injury the whole season - likely Peps last - has been completely tossed off.

Without Rodri we are bang average - we were last season - and exactly the same this season with an inferior squad.

What a waste of Peps last season. I fear it could get messy if results against Brighton Spurs and LFC go tits up.
 
Prophet of Doom said:
It’s a tough job getting standins for Rodri and Haaland - but that why Txiki gets paid handsomely.

We lost every game Rodri didn’t play last season. Not addressing this with new signings in the Summer was negligent.

Now cause of the injury the whole season - likely Peps last - has been completely tossed off.

Without Rodri we are bang average - we were last season - and exactly the same this season with an inferior squad.

What a waste of Peps last season. I fear it could get messy if results against Brighton Spurs and LFC go tits up.
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"Now cause of the injury the whole season - likely Peps last - has been completely tossed off" - its happened already in Your life?

"Without Rodri we are bang average" - its borderline trolling. Its just so poor and inaccurate judgment mate.
 
We might not be in the title race this season. Far too early anyway to make bold decisions. Close the thread until Jan/feb and see what’s what then.
 
vmsuhail said:
Nobody talks about it because of the fee received, but selling Alvarez without buying a replacement was another mistake. Echeverri is not at the level yet.
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Bobb is a wonderful talent, probably with a higher ceiling than Alvarez. We didn't want to block his path and have another Palmer situation. It's impossible to predict everything, mistakes happen.

I'm relaxed because it's normal to have a bad season after 4 consecutive great seasons and a Treble to boot. But with Pep and these players, you never know...
 
The current tactical approach needs changing. It's been obvious since Rodri's injury how easy it is to get at us without him. We dominated Arsenal, had them pinned in when he was on the pitch. He reads the game exceptionally well and mops up any out ball. That gives our attacking players the confidence to press intensely and allows us to overload the midfield without an issue.

That's not the case now.

The press isn't very good. There were so many times where there was an easy outball and the pressure was taking too long to come. Kovacic can't read the game as well, Rico is high up the pitch and then we're scrambling. Gundogan just doesn't have the legs to play in the middle without Rodri either. He needs to either play where he presses on the front foot - as a 10, or have an extra player sat in behind him. It's so easy to lose him as a marker and he can't get back.

Personally, I think we have to play Nunes in the middle. He's got the best energy in the squad, can cover the ground and whilst he's nowhere near the level of Rodri energy is vital if we're to win without him.
 
Solving the Rodri position is the key. For the second goal last night, the sight of Bernardo running back in the CB position to cover the transition summed it up. Pep has been able to solve almost all challenges, no left back, no striker etc. Now he has to solve this and he hasn’t found the answer yet, but I’m pretty sure that when he does it will help the forwards to, having a solid back line gives you so much more confidence and freedom. At the moment Haaland will be feeling the weight of the world, because if he doesn’t score we lose - the team and the manager need to fix these problems and then the goals will flow again.
 
We need a solid defensive 4 now. Given Walker's decline and Lewis's weaknesses, the best back 4 for big games is Akanji at RB, Stones and Dias at CB, and Gvardiol.

Then we can go with Kova/Gundo plus Nunes in front of the back 4, with Foden behind Haaland and Grealish/Doku and Savinho on the wings. This team can defend and counter attack. It may cede possession to some extent, but without Rodri our possession play is too open and vulnerable. Of course, KDB and Bernardo may feature, too. Bernie may/will start at Anfield instead of Savinho.
 
alexmcity said:
We need a solid defensive 4 now. Given Walker's decline and Lewis's weaknesses, the best back 4 for big games is Akanji at RB, Stones and Dias at CB, and Gvardiol.

Then we can go with Kova/Gundo plus Nunes in front of the back 4, with Foden behind Haaland and Grealish/Doku and Savinho on the wings. This team can defend and counter attack. It may cede possession to some extent, but without Rodri our possession play is too open and vulnerable. Of course, KDB and Bernardo may feature, too. Bernie may/will start at Anfield instead of Savinho.
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Only problem with that defence mate is that most are injured and will pick up injuries throughout the season.

It is what it is. This was always on the cards.

Pep needs time to sort it out.

At some point things will turn again in our favour.

As I said yesterday, you can’t now start blaming the players and coach after what they have achieved. Neither can do anything about age/injury.

The clubs plan seems to be to let this current group of players dwindle out until the new sporting director arrives allowing him to get the players needed.

It’s easy supporting a club that wins, now we see the emotional crackpots out in force when the team struggle.

Fuck knows what pep is going to do to try and fix it but he will I have no doubt.
 
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