Who and what’s to blame?

[Ban-jani]

You can’t coast on history pal, recent as it may be. Each season is its own story.

Sorry for being positive about the fact we’ve won 6 trophies in 2.5 seasons.

The unrealistic view of winning the league every season is what needs dropping, not an appreciation of what this team has done, this time 12 months ago we became the first team to win the domestic treble and did so during the most intense title race going, in terms of closeness and abilities of both sides.

We win the CL then you’re all going to look foolish.

 

[B\connellblue]

If anything we are in a worse position going forward than a year ago.
For the most part recruitment has been poor. What the fuck have we against buying midfielders with pace. Rhodri has been utter shit,a larger version of Gundogan. Slow ponderous and in the modern game easily ambushed. Cancelo transfer a sacking offence in itself. Loss of fern in the middle huge. But above all the failure to move the deadwood on, stones,otta etc. Other teams have closed the gap on us now.

 

[brummie blue]

Simple, Pep and those above him at fault.

Someone made a decision to not replace Kompany. It started there.

Down to three centre half's, including a want away 4th choice Otimendi, out of form and regular sick note Stones and Laporte. We were weaker than the previous league winning season and one injury away from disaster, and that's exactly what happened.

Then to compound the decision not to replace Kompany, we moved the best holding midfielder in the premier league for the last 5 years to centre half, good as Fernandinho is he's not a centre half, but the real issue with that decision was it weakened the midfield as far as breaking opposition attacks down, distribution from defence and protecting the back four. Rodri was not ready and needed as season of sharing games with Fernandinho.

Add the unfortunate loss of Sane before the season started to the mix and we were up against it from day one.

A work mate is a sensible Liverpool fan, (a rare thing I know) he asked me what was the difference with City this season, I turned it this way.

If last June Joe Gomez had gone to Klopp and said I'm leaving and they didn't replace him, then 5 games into the season Virgil van Dijk was injured for two thirds of the season, and Klopp decided to move Georgino Wijnaldum to centre half, plus Sadio Mane is out for the season injured as well, would Liverpool have had the season they did?

4 things destroyed our season, two of our own doing having the biggest effect:

1. Not replacing Kompany (our fault)
2. Moving Fernandinho to centre half (our fault)
3. Injury to Laporte (Unfortunate - but compounded because of point 1)
4. Injury to Sane (Unfortunate)

 

[blueparrot]

My take now is nobody wins it 4 seasons running so we lost this year , win it next. Even if we were getting 99/100 points this year it may not have been enough to stop Liverpool this season, they only wanted 1 thing.

Besides Pep knows why and will put it right, Liverpool won't repeat an over 100 point season.

https://www.mancity.com/news/mens/pep-guardiola-reaction-chelsea-2-man-city-1-63728717


“This season we dropped points at the beginning, some unfairly and some because we made mistakes like today,” he conceded.


"
Pep also admitted he always believed winning the Premier League year after year was a huge challenge, saying: “I never thought that we always could win (the league).

“We can now say the last 10 competitions we played in, we won eight titles," said the Catalan.

“That’s never happened before in this country. You cannot win all the time.

“We missed one central defender and Laporte was injured in the season.

“That was a problem for us and we didn’t show the consistency we needed to play better.

“I’ve never thought as a manager that you can always win.

“Liverpool, after winning the Champions League and not winning the Premier League for 30 years, played with incredible focus as if it was the last chance they had.

“We cannot forget that we won two titles this season and we have two more to play for.

“We are going to try. We are going to try and qualify for the Champions League next season and then we can play in it in August.

“We have to take a little bit of perspective, be humble and say we can’t win all the time.

 

[balotellishaircut]

With Laporte out we became weaker in two positions because Fernandinho had to leave his midfield role and play in the centre of defence. We really could have been better as last night shows we were a bit iffy at the back again.

That said, the scousers had help, too much help IMO.

Exactly this..

 

[crystal_mais]

was thinking about it this morning. My view is:-

First thing credit has to be given to Liverpool - no matter what they have been a machine.

1. Not replacing Vinny with a leader/CB - a solid CB with the right technical skills and some pace
2. LB - Don't think Angelino is the answer
3. Rodri - Jury is still out for me on him - his lack of pace is worrying and can easily be over run on the break
4. Is it time for a Sergio replacement
5. Every game we have been beaten in - follows the same pattern so have we have not learned. High Press with slow CB's doesn't help which is exposing Ederson to too many 1 on 1's
6. Tactical Fouls - so much has been made of this and refs have become wiser and pulling us up and we are not committing them anymore

We still have some big games and Pep needs to find a way of stopping that press and counter punch we keep getting caught out with

Is Peps future also causing any doubts? We still have a trophy and If we can have success in either or both of the FA Cup & CL - then its still a damn good return. Also we are still second in the league - just the bloody scousers have been a lot better.

 

[Thaksinssoldier]

Sorry for being positive about the fact we’ve won 6 trophies in 2.5 seasons.

The unrealistic view of winning the league every season is what needs dropping, not an appreciation of what this team has done, this time 12 months ago we became the first team to win the domestic treble and did so during the most intense title race going, in terms of closeness and abilities of both sides.

We win the CL then you’re all going to look foolish.

if we win the cl it means nothing in the context of failing to defend the league.

Di Matteo won it.
Liverpool won it with 4 losses in their campaign.

it’s a glossy cup tournament at its heart. Some luck can get you over the line

 

[citytill1die84]

people are hanging onto the idea we are in the cups - we are but the way we played last night we will get nowhere near the champs league (esp with our defence) and the FAC still has Chelsea and utd in it and utd have beaten us twice already this season some people seem to forget - there system of play as shit as it looks on a pitch exposes all our weaknesses

Fuck me we may as well give up then? The squad went to fucking Madrid and won. We also battered the rags at the swamp in the League Cup which we also won by the way.

We also beat Chelsea at the Etihad. We lost to United at the Swamp in the league because Pep decided our best player needed resting.

Talk about OTT ffs grow a pair man.

Few signings in defence and we'll be back fighting. Reading this thread and what some people are spouting you'd think we were bottom of the league.

 

[Marvin]

Sorry for being positive about the fact we’ve won 6 trophies in 2.5 seasons.

The unrealistic view of winning the league every season is what needs dropping, not an appreciation of what this team has done, this time 12 months ago we became the first team to win the domestic treble and did so during the most intense title race going, in terms of closeness and abilities of both sides.

We win the CL then you’re all going to look foolish.

We can win the CUp and the Champions league but this side has some defensive weakness. Losing Laporte was one injury too far but even with him we can't carry the defence. We need to find another central defender to play alongside Laporte. Maybe Garcia and or Harwood Bellis, or maybe we need to buy one.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I said last summer that the squad needed refreshing for the sake of the players. The core of that team had just done 198 points in two seasons and had to be literally perfect for the final half of the 18/19 season. The intensity and pressure was IMO always going to tell this season. We should've pre-empted that by being a bit more aggressive in our recruitment.

I think that this point should not be underestimated. Keeping the same intensity with virtually the same squad for a third season was virtually impossible. Even a more aggressive recruitment campaign might not have worked as new players need time to learn Pep's methods. We seldom if ever lose because we have been outplayed. Normally its a lack of energy or individual mistakes that trip us up. All signs of mental tiredness. To win the title this year we needed to be absolutely perfect and frankly that was never going to happen. Working for Pep is mentally exhausting.