This team won't be considered great until...

[BLUEMATT23]

We have our own ICE CREAM BARS!!!!

 

[Deleted member 77198]

I think if you asked a representative sample of football fans to "name great PL football teams" the biggest nominations would be united's 98/99 team and Arsenal's 03/04 invincibles. Clearly those teams didnt exist in a vacuum, they won trophies in adjacent seasons. But it was their achievements in those particular seasons that conveyed "greatness"

If City were to win the CL this season then this year's team will eventually be labelled as a great. Some might argue that it wouldnt be a great team if we didnt go on to win additional trophies. But its highly unlikely that we'll prove to be one season wonders.

At this stage of the 98/99 or 03/04 season, hardly anyone would have described united or Arsenal's teams as being great. Neither club was dominating the league in the same way that City are this season. United's team went from being a "very good" team to a "great" team in the space of a fortnight. Its only at the end of a season that the label "great" can be applied, but I think a team can be labelled as great based on the achievements in a single season.

I think United’s team of 2008 was better/greater than the 1999 team and they won less. I think Arsenal in 1998 were better/greater than 2004 and they didn’t go unbeaten in the league. Arsenal probably had the second best side in Europe (after Real Madrid) from about 1998-2004 yet never won or made the final of the CL and then actually managed to get there when they had a far worse team in 2006. The year Chelsea won the Champions League it was with their worst team of any year from about 2004-2015 and with their worst manager since Hoddle in the 90s but did that night make them great? The year after they won the Europa Lg and became the first English club and only the third club full stop to win every single trophy they have ever been able to. Chelsea are no greater than us, Everton, Spurs, Villa. But you wouldn’t think that going off that record.

I think people equating greatness to achievements aren’t really looking deeper into what achievements actually entailed.

 

[OB1]

Yep, with the exception of YaYa, Vinny, Serge and David, this current squad contains nobody who has won the league as many times as Jamie Vardy.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

 

[OB1]

I disagree that any of the Forest teams Clough managed were ‘great’. That’s what made his achievements so great.

Well done young man ;-)

 

[Gingers Dad]

To date, he has only won it once.

Which is as many as Jamie Vardy

 

[Deleted member 77198]

All you had to do to win the European Cup - star by wining your league, so, much, much more difficult than winning the FA Cup.
Forest in '79, beat the holders Liverpool as well as German champions Cologne, plus AEK Athens and Grasshoppers of Zurich, neither were mugs. Straight knockout, none of this group stage bollocks and only played between champions, no runners-up, 3rd, 4th, 5th place rubbish.
Forest were a great side.

Ah yes, the champions of Moldova and Liechtenstein from the old European Cup days were so much better than this current Liverpool and Real Madrid sides

Do you think we might get a bye in the semis if we get past Liverpool next month?

 

[Mid Wales blue]

Given that we’re dealing with a moveable feast that began back in 2009 with Becky Wecky and ‘Shit on the’ Lou Macari informing everyone and anyone who would listen that “money was no guarantee of success” (to have admitted otherwise would have been to detract from the myth of Taggart as the world’s greatest ever manager you understand), I reckon that we will finally be recognised as a great side when we eventually defeat Alpha Centauri Rovers in the inaugural Known Universe Cup Final, and even then Martin Tyler will be quick to point out that all of the opposition players only have one eye each and that they were tired after a long midweek trip to Gamma Delta V for a league game 3 days previously

Yes, but we would have won that match if it wasn’t for the intergalactic raggy refs travelling back in time, and disallowing our 4 goals for offside!

 

[OB1]

All you had to do to win the European Cup - star by wining your league, so, much, much more difficult than winning the FA Cup.
Forest in '79, beat the holders Liverpool as well as German champions Cologne, plus AEK Athens and Grasshoppers of Zurich, neither were mugs. Straight knockout, none of this group stage bollocks and only played between champions, no runners-up, 3rd, 4th, 5th place rubbish.
Forest were a great side.

Don't actually care whether Forest were or weren't a great side but having seen plenty enough of them at the time, I'm confident this City side would eviscerate them (if time travel were possible).

 

[johnnytapia]

Don't actually care whether Forest were or weren't a great side but having seen plenty enough of them at the time, I'm confident this City side would eviscerate them (if time travel were possible).

I’d be happy for this City team to match what that Forset team achieved.

 

[OB1]

...hell freezes over.

Such things are “decided” by media types, most of whom will,never be in City’s corner, because we just don’t have the media influence needed to get there. One only needs to look at the world of punditry and what passes for football journalism today to know that City will always be tagged with the new money/oil money/bought success label, and the context of the UEFA Club that was trying to keep us out, first with FFP, now with changing the seedlings for the CL, and who knows what is next, will all be lost to the ignorance of faint history.

Those of us who have been playing and watching football know we are watching and experiencing football of the highest quality ever seen on this shores. That is undeniable and the highlight reel of our goals this season will be hours and hours long, because not only will there be so many goals to see, but the build up play for some of the goals has been almost unbelievable.

We are witnessing a team walk away with the League, possibly beating the goals and points records, while playing football that was once the sole purview of the Continentals, and even then only those living in the rarefied air of places like Madrid or Barcelona.

That said, the historical yardsticks will always be placed in our path, even though eras of football are distinctly different and the likes of 20 PL titles may never be seen again because of the financial dominance of one club and one manager. Nobody will be able to take away the greatness of the Ferguson era, but that doesn’t not mean Manchester United will always be great, as evidenced by the last few years and their players, fans and sycophants hanging on to that Ferguson era history for dear life. In Liverpool we see the same thing. In a different era, they had some fantastic players and managers and managed to string together a few trophies of note, most notably 5 European Cups. However, for a club that has failed to win the League in the apremier League era, their pretensions to continued greatness are laughable. Leeds United were once great, too, and look at them!

Many fans of many clubs can remember a time when their team had. Modicum of success, but we seem to be dogged by two local teams that have achieved a history of success...just not for many years! In that time, City has built a club that can compete with anyone, has the best domestic record of any club in the Premier League for the last 7 seasons and is being touted as the best footballing team to ever play in these shores.

For me, today, right now, that is all I care about. I have lived through the history of United and Liverpool’s greatness in British football, but in the last few years, they have been pretensions at best. City are, by far, the best team in Britain for the past 7 years. They have won the most titles, been the best overall team, won multiple domestic cup trophies and have gone furthest in the Champions League in recent years. Regardless, a biased football press will have an excuse for it all and the players that have achieved it (and the fans that have enjoyed it) should not care in the slightest. I know what I have witnessed and the truth of the statistics do not lie...City are the best team in Britain in the modern era of the 2010s.

Sensible stuff.

Although I think now is not really the time to discuss how this team ranks against the acknowledged great sides of the past (recent or far). This season is not over yet and quite a lot of significance to such a debate could yet happen. That won't change the actual quality of what we have so far seen this season but perceptions could be influenced and we all know that "perception is reality".

As to what the perceptions or opinions are of other supporters or the media, it's an opportunity for debate but ultimately I don't care: I'm having too much fun watching this team and, if the fun continues, greatness is assured in my eyes.