What if we struggle next season?

BillyShears said:
The key word for me is unremarkable. Bad? Nah. Certainly not calamitous. This thread's a bit like the one about how much we've won in the last five years and how it's not good enough. I can't help but wonder what exactly it is that people think is 'acceptable'. We've been relatively speaking, the most successful club since the 11/12 season. We're in a situation where we're heading into an FA Cup semi at Wembley as favourites to get to the final. It just feels like some people have an unrealistic view of what they want to see from the team. I'm not going to say that they expect to win every game, but certainly I get the feeling some think that we should be winning the title more or less every year. And, when we don't they seem to want to use the money we've spent on players as a stick to beat the team with.

At some point you need to get real. We won't win the title every year. We will have seasons like 13/14 and season like this one or the last one. Even if we continue to spend loads and buy the best players. That's life.
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This defence is probably the weirdest things I read on here and I contribute to the majority of weirdness. Show me one post that says we should win the title every year? Just one and then your post could hold a little credibility instead of making stuff up.

My viewpoint on it is seasons like this are bad, not a disaster, not the end of the world but certainly not good. I would imagine our owners don’t continue to pump countless millions into this club for a top 4 battle and an Fa cup semi. We might go on to win the cup which would be fantastic but wont gloss over how this season has panned out. We won’t win everything, every year but as a club and with this investment we should be at least challenging. We shouldn’t be out of the Champions League at the first attempt in the knock outs. We shouldn’t be out of a title challenge in January, we should be a force which is always competitive.

That’s certainly my problem and is why I don’t view this as a good season. We have had bad luck, some bad decisions but we have underperformed.

With another year of Pep, better players coming in things will only improve but we can’t take that as a definite , just like we thought simply having Pep we would be challenging again.
 
Tom_mcfc said:
This defence is probably the weirdest things I read on here and I contribute to the majority of weirdness. Show me one post that says we should win the title every year? Just one and then your post could hold a little credibility instead of making stuff up.

My viewpoint on it is seasons like this are bad, not a disaster, not the end of the world but certainly not good. I would imagine our owners don’t continue to pump countless millions into this club for a top 4 battle and an Fa cup semi. We might go on to win the cup which would be fantastic but wont gloss over how this season has panned out. We won’t win everything, every year but as a club and with this investment we should be at least challenging. We shouldn’t be out of the Champions League at the first attempt in the knock outs. We shouldn’t be out of a title challenge in January, we should be a force which is always competitive.

That’s certainly my problem and is why I don’t view this as a good season. We have had bad luck, some bad decisions but we have underperformed.

With another year of Pep, better players coming in things will only improve but we can’t take that as a definite , just like we thought simply having Pep we would be challenging again.
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So basically this is just a semantic game where some people say disappointing, others say bad, and other still say disaster.

I'm glad that's clear.
 
BillyShears said:
So basically this is just a semantic game where some people say disappointing, others say bad, and other still say disaster.

I'm glad that's clear.
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I think in fairness it isn't about winning, it's about competing.

Last year we had a team of champions that frankly embarrassed itself by failing to turn up in the big games time and time again.

This year, we've certainly turned up, but results look no different. We'll look back and realize our season this year cannot be compared to the one before because it was Boro, Southampton and their ilk that saw us lose a competitive edge this year rather than the big teams.

But on the whole, I think people just wanted a more valiant try from the team over the years, which we didn't consistently get.
 
Thaksinssoldier said:
I think in fairness it isn't about winning, it's about competing.

Last year we had a team of champions that frankly embarrassed itself by failing to turn up in the big games time and time again.

This year, we've certainly turned up, but results look no different. We'll look back and realize our season this year cannot be compared to the one before because it was Boro, Southampton and their ilk that saw us lose a competitive edge this year rather than the big teams.

But on the whole, I think people just wanted a more valiant try from the team over the years, which we didn't consistently get.
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I agree totally with the initial sentiment. We didn't compete last season at all, and the season before wasn't hugely different. Our performance against Madrid in Madrid was about as pathetic as you can get.

This season though is different. Pellegrini had been in charge of the team for three seasons, and this is Pep's first. He's trying to implant a new style of play which is different from what Pellegrini did even it's still based around a high defensive line. He's also dealing with the end of Zaba, Sagna, Clichy, Kompany, etc. Whether it should've been or not, it has ended up being a season of transition. An FA cup and a top 4 finish will suffice. Next season will be much better because Pep is one of the world's best managers and regardless of who we buy, the players we keep will be better, more consistent, more comfortable with his style of play.
 
BillyShears said:
I agree totally with the initial sentiment. We didn't compete last season at all, and the season before wasn't hugely different. Our performance against Madrid in Madrid was about as pathetic as you can get.

This season though is different. Pellegrini had been in charge of the team for three seasons, and this is Pep's first. He's trying to implant a new style of play which is different from what Pellegrini did even it's still based around a high defensive line. He's also dealing with the end of Zaba, Sagna, Clichy, Kompany, etc. Whether it should've been or not, it has ended up being a season of transition. An FA cup and a top 4 finish will suffice. Next season will be much better because Pep is one of the world's best managers and regardless of who we buy, the players we keep will be better, more consistent, more comfortable with his style of play.
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Yeah in fairness only a fool would think that this isn't going to see a huge improvement this year. I think mentality will be the reason Delph has a good shot of being implemented more next year, and why others are being given a goodbye come May. Pep is going to stack this team with people who just won't stop running and hustling and it's going to lead to the tempo necessary to play this way.
 
It's understandable really. The early Mancini era raised the expectations of the fans to impossible levels. Even Barcelona don't win as much as our fans expect us to win, and they've been a consistently dominating team domestically and Europe wide for decades.
 
Damocles said:
It's understandable really. The early Mancini era raised the expectations of the fans to impossible levels. Even Barcelona don't win as much as our fans expect us to win, and they've been a consistently dominating team domestically and Europe wide for decades.
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True, but those kind of teams compete. Our problem has been the year long holiday after each title win. That's why our fans feel the team should have won more, and I think win is harsh, but compete would be the correct way of looking at it.
 
Thaksinssoldier said:
Yeah in fairness only a fool would think that this isn't going to see a huge improvement this year. I think mentality will be the reason Delph has a good shot of being implemented more next year, and why others are being given a goodbye come May. Pep is going to stack this team with people who just won't stop running and hustling and it's going to lead to the tempo necessary to play this way.
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Spot on. Ultimately you either see where the journey is headed or you don't. A lot of the more dissatisfied customers so to speak seem incapable of seeing where Pep wants to take them, or seem to think that this season is some sort of proof that Pep's just another manager.
 
Thaksinssoldier said:
Our problem has been the year long holiday after each title win
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Well we only had a 1 season holiday after the first, nobody else has retained it either. The only season I thought we should have been better was last season. This season I expected to be getting about 85 points which wouldn't probably win it against Chelsea anyway. We may be 5 or 6 off my expectations but I can see the progress and the reasons we are just off.
 
Damocles said:
It's understandable really. The early Mancini era raised the expectations of the fans to impossible levels. Even Barcelona don't win as much as our fans expect us to win, and they've been a consistently dominating team domestically and Europe wide for decades.
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Impossible levels? No. I think the majority of fans' expectations are in line with those of our owners. For the amount of money we've thrown at the problem we are underachieving.

Pep will give us 3 years of his time and I hope in years 2 and 3 we see some significant results (at least one PL title and a CL final). We should allow him the time to complete his experiments. If he doesn't deliver then I would hope that the owners will find a manager who is less idealistic and can instil a defensive mind-set, work rate and winning mentality to go with our financial clout. This would be an unbeatable combination.
 
jimmygrimblesboots said:
There will be a positive if our season is just as bad , (champs league football and another visit to wembley what a disaster) maybe the tossers who post all the negative shite in the matchday and post match forums will f*ck off and take their glory hunting , plastic , remote control holding mates with them and leave our club to genuine supporters who do not think football was invented in 2012.
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I don't buy in to that mate. I'm 27 and started properly following city the year we got relegated to division 2 and then saw us come back through the divisions. I am a level headed supporter but in my opinion the last 3 seasons including this year havn't been good enough. For the money we have spent and the players we have there should be high expectations and we are currently falling well short. I won't make a full judgement on pep at this stage because his reputation earns him the right to be given a fair crack of the whip. But from what I have seen there hasn't been a great deal of progress this year and if we are in the same position in 12 months then questions should be asked.
 
BillyShears said:
The key word for me is unremarkable. Bad? Nah. Certainly not calamitous. This thread's a bit like the one about how much we've won in the last five years and how it's not good enough. I can't help but wonder what exactly it is that people think is 'acceptable'. We've been relatively speaking, the most successful club since the 11/12 season. We're in a situation where we're heading into an FA Cup semi at Wembley as favourites to get to the final. It just feels like some people have an unrealistic view of what they want to see from the team. I'm not going to say that they expect to win every game, but certainly I get the feeling some think that we should be winning the title more or less every year. And, when we don't they seem to want to use the money we've spent on players as a stick to beat the team with.

At some point you need to get real. We won't win the title every year. We will have seasons like 13/14 and season like this one or the last one. Even if we continue to spend loads and buy the best players. That's life.
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No. Nobody expects us to win the title every season. What the more critical fans expect is that we make a serious fcukin challenge every season and on several fronts. Dropping out as also-rans at the three-quarters mark is certainly not acceptable to me, specially when we lag behind relative paupers and journeymen (Leicester last year) and clubs who virtually break even in the transfer market (Spurs). Bear in mind too the rags' laughable escapades, Chelsea's implosion, the Dippers' inconsistency and Arsenal's flakiness, all of which offered tasty opportunities.

Say what you like, we've been force-fed cash like foie-gras geese and that raises expectations - in football and in business.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy watching City and love being a Blue. But under-achievers we are.
 
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jimmygrimblesboots said:
There will be a positive if our season is just as bad , (champs league football and another visit to wembley what a disaster) maybe the tossers who post all the negative shite in the matchday and post match forums will f*ck off and take their glory hunting , plastic , remote control holding mates with them and leave our club to genuine supporters who do not think football was invented in 2012.
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Well said : )
 
davymcfc said:
I don't buy in to that mate. I'm 27 and started properly following city the year we got relegated to division 2 and then saw us come back through the divisions. I am a level headed supporter but in my opinion the last 3 seasons including this year havn't been good enough. For the money we have spent and the players we have there should be high expectations and we are currently falling well short. I won't make a full judgement on pep at this stage because his reputation earns him the right to be given a fair crack of the whip. But from what I have seen there hasn't been a great deal of progress this year and if we are in the same position in 12 months then questions should be asked.
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I think part of the problem, and expectations, comes from the money we spent which makes us believe we have a team capable of competing yet in reality we have just spent huge sum on pretty average players.

Case in point being the 47.5 million spent on Stones, who could not get in Everton's side last year and performance level this year is way down in comparison to other centre halves.

We have a tendency to over hype our players and believe they are better than they are. There are not many people who would swap many Spurs players (fullbacks, keeper accepted) for our own players yet for the last two seasons they have outperformed our own.
 
franksinatra said:
I think part of the problem, and expectations, comes from the money we spent which makes us believe we have a team capable of competing yet in reality we have just spent huge sum on pretty average players.

Case in point being the 47.5 million spent on Stones, who could not get in Everton's side last year and performance level this year is way down in comparison to other centre halves.

We have a tendency to over hype our players and believe they are better than they are. There are not many people who would swap many Spurs players (fullbacks, keeper accepted) for our own players yet for the last two seasons they have outperformed our own.
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To what extent? Last season City finished 4th in league position to Spurs 3rd and City won the league cup. How have they outperformed City the last 2 seasons?
 
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hutton who blue said:
To what extent? Last season City finished 4th in league position to Spurs 3rd and City won the league cup. How have they outperformed City the last 2 seasons?
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You have answered your own question. They finished above us last year and currently on course to do so again spending a fraction of what we have done. The spending does not really bother me but I think it does give people a false expectation of how good the side is rather than reflects a poor recruitment policy.
 
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