Txiki Begiristain...

[Deleted member 14625]

about £250m iirc.

That's how much Benitez spent and didn't win the league

I just think we should be honest with ourselves, because we won the title last year battling it out with one of the worst United teams have had under Ferguson that over-achieved beyond means... a Chelsea side that under the first 6 months under Villas Boas were in constant battle with each other and the realtionship clearly never got on, plus Chelsea were an ageing side and seemed to only really care about the Champions League, even if they did fluke it. Plus, Arsenal... they had one of the worst sides under Wenger and clearly relied on RVP to scrape them through.

Benitez's Liverpool was battling out with the best United squad since the treble season, Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney up front, Vidic, Ferdinand and Van Der Sar was the best defense in world football - Chelsea had a team where all the players were in their prime and Arsenal had by far a better side than they did last season.

We nearly lost the league last year, and if we had done it would of gone down as the biggest dissapointments in Premier League history, we will never have a better season to win it than last year.

I've never understood this sort of view.

It doesn't matter how good the teams are that you're battling with because you only play them twice a season. It's a league, there are 20 teams, you play each team home and away. United may not be as good as they once were but they were better than the other 18 teams in the league and we can't stop them picking up points when they aren't playing us. We can only do what we can do and apart from the odd team who've got over 90 points over the years, we gained an amazing 89 points last season. W28 D5 L5 is a brilliant achievement.

There are a few deficiencies in our squad. We've got players who we bought for fortunes when we were a mid table team. Established top teams all over Europe were paying less on better players. Some of those very expensive players who were bought to push us from an average side to a "top four" (even though fourth isn't a good place to finish, the top three are the important places) side, are still playing a big part today. When we've been an established top club for a good five years or more we will rarely, if ever, look at players at that level ever again for our strongest XI.

We've got some good players and a few great players but I think people overestimate and overrate our squad compared to the very best in Premier League history just because of the money spent. Fuck the money, it often isn't relative to the quality of player, especially to a club like City who are raped out of £millions€ just because we've got it. If everyone we've bought were bought by random clubs all over Europe you'd be able to reckon their combined transfer fees up to about two-thirds to even half of what we ended up paying.

 

[feelymcfeel]

Yes, but we still won and to simply dismiss the rags squad as crap, is to ignore the fact that we have gone from 9 to 1st in 4 seasons. Adding at least 5 players a season to the squad while they have had a settled and steady (declining possibly), squad and 3 seasons of piss poor opposition in the champions league. Also its not like they haven't spent money. With Marwood now sidelined, we can hopefully push on in the transfer market. We shouldn't underestimate the monumental change in our club. From top, ultimately to bottom, over 4 years we have changed from a team that survives, to a team that wins trophies. We can tap in to the rag media mantra of "after all the money you've spent", bollocks, but its just that. Chelski, already had champions league football before they were bought and were so much further down the path than we were. We are playing catch up with teams that were winning trophies, while we were either getting promoted, or relegated with a revolving door for the managers position. We now have a superb owner, a CEO with an excellent CV, a Director of football with an excellent CV and a manager, who has taken on great, but hugely difficult job and succeeded. Our future is so bright, you will need shades, but we are still 5 years from the champions league and 10-12 from seeing the real fruit of our labor in the youth set up. So, who cares if we win the league in exactly the same manner again this season? Not me, nor anyone else who supports the club, because to win the league each season is what matters and not just because a certain individual said it was the one aim for his team this season.

 

[taconinja]

Didn't they have 89 points and we beat them twice giving a 12-point Goal Difference swing? Not sure how we could have done more against them. And isn't 89 points a record for not winning it? I may be mistaken about that though.

 

[LoveCity]

Highest ever points total is 95pts (Chelsea) so people who say we should have had the title won by Easter are deluded when United also finished on 89pts.

 

[Deleted member 14625]

It would of been up there with Newcastle years ago. We had by far the best team in the league last season, United to what you would call their usual modern standard had a poor team than over achieved and if they had won it, it would of gone down as Fergusons greatest achievement given the squad he had, plus the injuries they had to that squad.

We should have had the title won weeks if not months befire the season ended.

We had the best first XI in the league but United had more quality the deeper into their squad you went. When we had one or two players missing (especially from Kompany Yaya Silva Kun) we were not the same quality side. United can have three or four missing and you barely notice because their squad players could do the same job as the players by were replacing. They had much better centre half options (spent a huge amount of the season without their first choice two yet had Smalling Evans and Jones to replace them), whereas our squad centre half options (Kolo and Savic) were very poor options (Kompany missed nine games!). Plus they had pace and lots of wide options (Valencia Nani Young Giggs Park) we had one wide option who wasn't a great player. So we struggled to break teams down a lot of the time.

We weren't and still aren't (still got deficiencies throughout our squad) as good as people think we are.

 

[Summerbuzz]

It would of been up there with Newcastle years ago. We had by far the best team in the league last season, United to what you would call their usual modern standard had a poor team than over achieved and if they had won it, it would of gone down as Fergusons greatest achievement given the squad he had, plus the injuries they had to that squad.

We should have had the title won weeks if not months befire the season ended.

We had the best first XI in the league but United had more quality the deeper into their squad you went. When we had one or two players missing (especially from Kompany Yaya Silva Kun) we were not the same quality side. United can have three or four missing and you barely notice because their squad players could do the same job as the players by were replacing. Plus they had pace and lots of wide options (Valencia Nani Young Giggs Park) we had one wide option who wasn't a great player. So we struggled to break teams down a lot of the time.

We weren't and still aren't (still got deficiencies throughout our squad) as good as people think we are.

More or less agree with this, but for me it's not a question of the quality of replacements as much as it is their suitability (technically, and as personalities), and the relative lack of collective experience.

 

[zeven]

If Mansour wants European success he has to make moves.

If he is OK with domestic success we have to stick with Mancini he is capable of winning the league about every second year in average which is a good thing given the strenghts of our rivals.

But have a feeling he is not happy with our CL performances. He looks around and sees another teams didnt invest hundreds of millions to play this bad without vision or gameplan.

Idiot. keep you stupid feelings for yourself.

 

[Chi-town blues]

If Mansour wants European success he has to make moves.

If he is OK with domestic success we have to stick with Mancini he is capable of winning the league about every second year in average which is a good thing given the strenghts of our rivals.

But have a feeling he is not happy with our CL performances. He looks around and sees another teams didnt invest hundreds of millions to play this bad without vision or gameplan.

Idiot. keep you stupid feelings for yourself.

He sounds like a closet rag

 

[Damanino]

I agree it shouldnt ever go to last day with still to win/lose last season.

We had a good lead about 6 points. We then went on and gave Unted an 8 points lead. What a horrible run that was. From +6 to -8. That was a 14 point turn in space of a few weeks.

And they were horrible to their own level. Or to their own best level. that group stage where they failed (Basel, Benfica...), their League Cup joke losing against Crystal Palace maybe, lot more injury to them than us, key injury to Vidic, young goalkeeper who was really shit in his starting 6 months since that he is showing his skills many times.

We beat them twice so no question we were better than them but that also means if we take out the two derbies they collected 6 more points against the another 18 teams than us.

Also agree with the Benítez thing, he was up against a lot stronger United side that time, he made mistakes but didnt have a squad like City. He maybe had a better midfield with Gerrard, Xabi A, Mascherano, that was a top class midfield but his other players werent that strong, and his bench was nowhere near strong like United's or City's now.

Look at CL final against Milan when they won that squad was pretty weak squad in 2005, Baros, Smicer, Finnan, Luis Garcia, Biscan, the 32-33 year old Hamann...
(Finished only 5th in league that year.)

Fergie got into his head later, that was his final mistake and then he went crazy.:)

This league season another huge test to Mancini. Can he win it again against a stronger United (RVP) and stronger Chelsea?
Will he lose it only in the last 2-3 rounds?
Will he lose it by a 10 points gap? Or even more?

Even the way of losing it matters a lot. Way of winning matters less after all.:)
After this pretty bad CL fiasco again every eye on our league performance.

 

[cibaman]

. Can he win it again against a stronger United (RVP) and stronger Chelsea?

Chelsea are obviously stronger but there must be a question mark as to whether the combination of Mata, Oscar & Hazard will cope with the long hard slog of a PL season.

Van Persie clearly makes United stronger, just as Tevez does for City. United over achieved last season in picking up 89 points. They have weaknesses in both defense and midfield. I wouldnt put money on them achieving last season's points total even with RVP.

I really do think that if we can get bet back to our best, avoid too many injuries to our better players, we can see off Chelsea and United. Kompany will find the consistency of last season, Aguero is still getting back to his best, Silva was starting to show his old form before his injury. Last season's team still had plenty of improvement in it. And we've done it before.