Who and what’s to blame?

OP has nailed it for me.

My main reasons:

Defensive recruitment is a big one, felt that has been shambolic. We've been all over the place at times and losing Komapny's leadership was a huge blow.
Chopping and changing the team every other week, completely stunting any fluidity and consistency in the side. Even when we've been winning, he'd change it up and we'd drop points.
Off form Bernardo - absolute magician, but completely out of sorts this season. Position changes havent helped.
Losing Ferna in midfield
 
It depends on who you believe. Various people in the club will say we don’t want to overpay for players, the obvious example being Virgil Van Dyke. But there are plenty of examples of players we were in for but pulled out when it got too rich.

So, is it the club being run financially prudently, which is ironic given where we are with UEFA and CAS. Or is it FFP constraints?

The fact is we are not a club who will spunk £100 million plus on an Mbappe, Bale, Dembele etc. To be fair I’m not sure I want us to be that.

Whilst “where did it go wrong” is a valid question, and clearly things did go wrong, you can’t win everything.
 
I think the OP has nailed the majority of factors. Looking purely at City, the following stand out to me as having hugely impacted our season.

- Long term injuries to Laporte and Sane.
- Losing Kompany, not only as a player but his influence around the club.
- Fernandinho having to play out of position for the full season.
- Due to injuries we very rarely fielded the same team, especially lacked a stable back 4.
- Rodri first season adapting to a new league.
- Bernado Silva struggling to replicate the form of the previous season. He wasn't the only one but his was the most notable drop off.
- David Silva unfortunately not at the incredible level he has been for us, which is inevitable given his age.

It was an incredible achievement for us to retain the title last season, we were the first team to do that in a decade. We're likely to finish second and we're the only team to not drop out of the top 4 in 8 years now I think?

We've already won one cup this season and hopefully may win at least one more but the points difference in the league is definitely a blow.

Now is the time for Pep and the board to look at the squad and areas that need to be addressed for next season.

A new Centre Back and Left Back should be our priorities but I also wonder about a striker. Aguero leaves at the end of next season anyway so we know we can't rely on him forever and even if Jesus does step up we are still light in that area.

I dont expect a mass clear out but I think its likely the following will leave:

D. Silva (contract ends)
Otamendi
Sane

If we replace these players with quality signings I expect us to reduce that gap significantly and challenge for the league next season.
 
Semper aggressus said:
You pretty much nailed it to be honest mate.

It really pisses me off we won't seem to spend what it takes to stay at the top when we're in a position of strength, or go the extra few million to just complete the team once Pep has identified a player we need.

Fern in defence has been disastrous for both the reasons you stated.
Click to expand...

When we 'invest' we have an assortment of rival clubs writing letters, the RDAHMeedya fawning over a couple of clubs who they insist are being run in 'the right way', and decrying every penny we spend as 'financial doping', and when that doesn't cut any ice with the Good Sheikh we have those 'clubs' arm-twisting the goons at Uefa to open up an investigation which leads to a fine (which fine could have bought a decent player), and then for them to reopen it and summarily stick us for a two year ban - two fifths of the length of time ban that befell English clubs when a murderous mob descended on Brussels. It all chips away.
 
Not replacing Kompany was huge. You clearly can’t replace him and what he’s done for the club but too not bring in a top CB was a decision which was always going to come back and hit us hard. Laporte’s injury after about 4/5 games set the season up for me. That’s our two starting centre backs gone. Name me any team in Europe and take away their best two CB’s. They would struggle badly. As for the rest of the team, lack of consistency from last years top performers (Sterling,Bernardo,Silva). Cancelo was a awful buy, I’m still not completely sold on Rodri but I do believe he’ll come good. Like others have said tho we’ve won 8 of the last 10 domestic trophies and could still end the season with two big ones. Definitely work needed in the summer to sort the defence out
 
Why is it that when we don’t win the league, we aren’t even close? In our recent history, the closest we’ve been when not taking the title was 8 points in 2015, but we were 11 points behind in 2013, 15 points in both 2016 and 2017 and now 23 and counting. There has to be a reason? Seems like we are all or bust.
 
I think the main issue has been the intensity and near perfection of the two previous years. We were the first team to defend the title in the last 10 years and did so losing just 6 games over those two seasons, breaking all sort of records. Three titles in a row are very very rare so to do so was always going to be difficult - especially against Liverpool who had only played at that intensity for one year and had the pain of not winning a title despite getting 97 points and only losing one game. Liverpool were either going to go to pieces or kick on - they kicked on.

From the start we have struggled to maintain that intensity and silly mistakes have been costly. I think back to the Tottenham game - we can point the finger at a poor VAR decision but we shouldn't have needed - either by taking chances or not conceding sloppy goals. The Norwich game highlighted so much that was going to go wrong and that we have been unable to trust the central defenders for large parts of the season. By the time we went to Anfield we were already falling behind - perhaps a result there would have changed the momentum for both teams. Again we can whinge at the referee - but in truth players wilted in the intensity and failed to respond to Liverpool's counter attacking.The next day Sterling had a fight with Gomez in England canteen and hasn't been the same player since.

It's hard to blame individuals - its a team game and as a team we have fallen short too often - not ruthless enough in front of goal, too sloppy when defending. Yet somehow we will probably finish 2nd in the league! The annoyance is that we didn't push Liverpool harder - see if they could match the intensity we managed last season with Liverpool waiting for a slip up. There were signs before the Coronavirus that they were struggling to keep that small core of players on track - but even then it was too late to seriously contemplate catching them - although our records might not have been broken - now Liverpool can relax and break all our records and prove that "they are the greatest team ever" [ouch - sorry bit my tongue].

As to next year - its all that's been said before - settle on a regular partner for Laporte, turn possession into more goals. How we do that will depend on a number of things - Champions league situation, replacing Sane or getting him focused to give us a sensational season before going to Bayern, Jesus becoming a 30 goal a season striker or finding someone else to take the weight off Sergio.
 
City fans.
To much blind faith and happy clapping with certain decisions.

Recruitment.
Kompany was replaced by Fernandinho. Huge drop in standard.
Fernandinho was replaced by Rodri. Huge drop in standard.
Cancelo at RB. Every summer we waste millions on right back replacements, when on the left we have Mendy and Zinchenko who aren’t good enough.
Gundogan is now a regular starter. He isn’t good enough.
Aguero and D.Silva due to leave. We won’t replace them with players with equal ability.
Letting Sane go. He added speed, directness and could actually shoot. Unlike a lot of our midfielders.

The defence.
An absolute shambles. We will never win the CL with that defence. Fernandinho is not a CB. Zinchenko is not a LB. Stones and Otamendi are average CB who make so many individual errors. Rodri doesn’t stop any attacks like Fernandinho does. He’s to slow.

The future.
Our time of being the best by a mile is over.
It’s not all doom and gloom. We are still a fantastic team. We will still always challenge for things but we did 2 years ago have the basis of a phenomenal team.

Sane Aguero Sterling

D.Silva Fernandinho KDB

What a line up.


Soon it will be

Sterling Jesus Mahrez

Gundogan Rodri KDB.


The standard is dropping from 10/10 to 8/10.... great to very good.
 
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