Will we win the league this season? No

Cobwebcat said:
Winning the PL with 80 odd points isn’t shit. It’s not normal to win with 95 plus points as Pep has always said.

88 points is average for the Champions and in most seasons 82 would be ahead of second place.

This is a normal season.
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The average points total of the PL runners-up is 80,5 pts. It's normal to win the league with 83-85 pts.
 
It really is one game at a time. I think (hope) the point we saved at Everton could be vital. There no easy games at this stage of the season. Teams who should be "on the beach" sometimes pull off amazing and surprising results. It's of no value really to speculate - Im sure Pep will just focus on our games and then only the game in front of him. Sadly I think Arsenal's win last night will have eased their nerves and taken some pressure off. We shall see. We're not dead yet.
 
At moment how Arsenal are playing as in not as nervy, can’t see them dropping any points at West Ham or the other two games! Only hope is West Ham’s play like demons but they won’t be allowed to lick them of the pitch! I bet the referee is not one of the so called top ones and the bloke on var will be running it!
 
DMA's said:
I know this is generally not allowed in football fandom but can we not just accept Arsenal are a bloody good side.

Yes they may be a bit tough to watch but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are still one of the better sides currently in Europe.

They had their wobble but I thought they played really well at our place and on another day they easily get a point or even all 3 if that Eze shot goes in.

Yes it’s frustrating we probably aren’t gonna win the league this year but football has always been and always will be cyclical in nature.

We had a great period and now we are rebuilding to hopefully once again get close to those levels. Arsenal are currently the team to beat and have the strongest squad in this country. And that’s fine to admit that. It won’t last forever.
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I see no reason we should all have to agree with you, mate.

I think they are awful to watch. “Good side” to me means “plays football I want to see”. That is just my definition, I’m afraid. You are never going to get me to agree with you because of their style of play and all the play acting and whining, but most of all the hypocrisy of the fuckers. Give it out a treat and whine like little girls when they get some back. At least dirty leeds could take it.
 
DMA's said:
I know this is generally not allowed in football fandom but can we not just accept Arsenal are a bloody good side.

Yes they may be a bit tough to watch but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are still one of the better sides currently in Europe.

They had their wobble but I thought they played really well at our place and on another day they easily get a point or even all 3 if that Eze shot goes in.

Yes it’s frustrating we probably aren’t gonna win the league this year but football has always been and always will be cyclical in nature.

We had a great period and now we are rebuilding to hopefully once again get close to those levels. Arsenal are currently the team to beat and have the strongest squad in this country. And that’s fine to admit that. It won’t last forever.
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They reached the CL final without losing once in 14 games. They had favourable draws but they are good. I think some are just trying to convince themselves they aren't a top team in order to be optimistic about our chances.

That said, the game at W Ham might be difficult. On paper, we should have won by 3+ goals vs QPR back in 2012 but it wasn't easy at all. So, anything between 3:0 Arsenal and 1:1 is not unlikely. I think a W Ham win is unlikely but it's not impossible.
 
Cobwebcat said:
Winning the PL with 80 odd points isn’t shit. It’s not normal to win with 95 plus points as Pep has always said.

88 points is average for the Champions and in most seasons 82 would be ahead of second place.

This is a normal season.
Click to expand...
I disagree
Only two teams have won the league with 83 points or less in the last 20 years
As such we simply haven’t got enough points to really expect to win

You could argue we’d be on for 90 if we turned some of the draws into wins which we should have
And that bodes well for the team moving forward
 
I think the intangibles are moving in Arsenal's direction. They got a perfect CL draw, just about navigated their way through it, and they are standing on the threshold of the Premier League and Champions League success. They are a very ordinary side but they are in good shape at the key moment.

I would have wanted them to go into the West Ham game in different circumstances. However, there are infinite variables in football which make it very difficult to predict. West Ham are under massive pressure. They may rise to the challenge, or fall. A chance deflection, moment of ill-discipline etc are all capable of detonating the game.

It's advantage Arsenal but City can maximise the doubt by beating Brentford. Then the gap would be 2 points, and Arsenal simply have to win, and put a nail in West Ham in the process. It could be a walk over if Arsenal score first, or it could turn out to be a very frustrating day for Arsenal. It's really impossible to predict. I can remember relegation matches at Maine Rd, and invariably we never showed but it does happen occasionally that a team can rise to the occasion. Spurs did it last weekend.
 
DMA's said:
I know this is generally not allowed in football fandom but can we not just accept Arsenal are a bloody good side.

Yes they may be a bit tough to watch but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are still one of the better sides currently in Europe.

They had their wobble but I thought they played really well at our place and on another day they easily get a point or even all 3 if that Eze shot goes in.

Yes it’s frustrating we probably aren’t gonna win the league this year but football has always been and always will be cyclical in nature.

We had a great period and now we are rebuilding to hopefully once again get close to those levels. Arsenal are currently the team to beat and have the strongest squad in this country. And that’s fine to admit that. It won’t last forever.
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I'm not here to build a case for admiring Arsenal. A shithouse club with the most active role of all clubs in trying to ruin our own club through a concerted effort via the PL. A club that writes letters to the authorities when they are threatened by competitors. A club that fills its coffers with anti-competitive owner interest-free loans whilst denying others the chance to boost their own revenue streams.

All of the above is before mentioning anything to do with football itself. A manager who lied to the disciplinary panel when calling a referee "a disgrace". A manager who leaves his technical area with total impunity, obstructing the opposition from taking throw-ins, throwing balls into the crowd to prevent the opposition from taking a quick throw-in, lining his substitutes up along the touchline when all substitutes have been used. I could go on. Then there's the team - diving, grappling on corners and in open play, headbutting, shirt-pulling, wasting time, feigning injury. Never forget that Myles Lewis-Skelly got a yellow card at the Etihad before he'd even appeared for Arsenal's first-team.

I hate Liverpool but begrudgingly admired how good they were under Klopp. To say anything less would demean City's brilliant efforts in overcoming them. But I'll only go as far to accept that Arsenal are the best of a bad bunch, a side that has benefited from the circumstances of a general dip in quality of football across Europe. This does happen from time to time. Anti-football does occasionally win and it probably will this year.
 
alexmcity said:
They reached the CL final without losing once in 14 games. They had favourable draws but they are good. I think some are just trying to convince themselves they aren't a top team in order to be optimistic about our chances.

That said, the game at W Ham might be difficult. On paper, we should have won by 3+ goals vs QPR back in 2012 but it wasn't easy at all. So, anything between 3:0 Arsenal and 1:1 is not unlikely. I think a W Ham win is unlikely but it's not impossible.
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They are at the level of Atletico Madrid. They can get to 85 points. That's how good they are. Those are facts.
 
jrb said:
You can go back to any defeat or draw if City don’t win the title over the season.

The Spurs away result will probably be the title killer, followed by the draws against Forest and West Ham. City should have taken 9 points instead of 3 points from those 3 games.

I still can’t understand how City collapsed in that 2nd half against a dreadful Spurs team.
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And 2 goals for Solanke, who has scored only another 2 in 13 games, sugar coats how much of a shit show that result was.
 
W Ham don't even need to be very good to get a result on Sunday. They have to be organised, run a lot and be lucky. A bit like Southampton in recent games. Luck is a huge factor in football. Bookies give W Ham a 35% chance to avoid a loss.
 
we just hope either west ham or even palace can do a job, the Everton result reminds me from a few years back when we levelled against Sunderland at home to salvage a point and how important that was
 
Marvin. said:
They are at the level of Atletico Madrid. They can get to 85 points. That's how good they are. Those are facts.
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Atletico are 4th in La Liga. Nothing suggests they are as good as Arsenal this season.

It's like saying that Arsenal are at the level of Southampton because they lost against them.
 
John Wayne said:
I'm not here to build a case for admiring Arsenal. A shithouse club with the most active role of all clubs in trying to ruin our own club through a concerted effort via the PL. A club that writes letters to the authorities when they are threatened by competitors. A club that fills its coffers with anti-competitive owner interest-free loans whilst denying others the chance to boost their own revenue streams.

All of the above is before mentioning anything to do with football itself. A manager who lied to the disciplinary panel when calling a referee "a disgrace". A manager who leaves his technical area with total impunity, obstructing the opposition from taking throw-ins, throwing balls into the crowd to prevent the opposition from taking a quick throw-in, lining his substitutes up along the touchline when all substitutes have been used. I could go on. Then there's the team - diving, grappling on corners and in open play, headbutting, shirt-pulling, wasting time, feigning injury. Never forget that Myles Lewis-Skelly got a yellow card at the Etihad before he'd even appeared for Arsenal's first-team.

I hate Liverpool but begrudgingly admired how good they were under Klopp. To say anything less would demean City's brilliant efforts in overcoming them. But I'll only go as far to accept that Arsenal are the best of a bad bunch, a side that has benefited from the circumstances of a general dip in quality of football across Europe. This does happen from time to time. Anti-football does occasionally win and it probably will this year.
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This. I’m tired of hearing how competitive the league is now compared to how it was. It makes it even worse when it’s City fans that are saying it. To me it just reads as “Yeah we got 100 points but only because the league was weaker back then”. It totally demeans the achievements of that 17/18 side and it’s also complete bollocks. Nobody mentions the collective quality (or lack of it) when they discuss Arsenals invincibles or Uniteds treble side. 17/18 City wipes the floor with any English side in PL history. In fact the only club side I rate higher in my lifetime is Pep’s Barca.

If any fan should know a sides relative quality to what’s gone before, it should be a City fan (of a certain age). A lot of us on here have seen the absolute worse to the absolute best. As a 46 year old who has been unlucky/lucky enough to see it all, I know that this Arsenal team are nothing to write home about. Just because a Bournemouth, Everton, Leeds, Fulham or any other side, have more money now than they used to doesn’t change that fact.

Arsenal are the best of a very average bunch in the Prem and are probably 3rd/4th best in what is not a very strong CL. PSG and Bayern are both much better but that’s not to say Arsenal can’t win a one-off final against either of them.
 
At the beginning of the season I thought we had no fucking chance whatsoever of winning the league. As the season progressed, we signed Guehi and Semenyo both of whom massively improved our squad. At the same time, Doku, Nunes, Khusanov and O'Reilly substantially improved. And Arsenal unexpectedly dropped a lot of points.

To win the league, we'll need Arsenal to stumble, which they might. And even then, we'll need to make up goal difference.

At this point in the league I think we have a shot at winning the title - say 40% or so - but given our remaining fixtures and the fact that we need Arsenal to drop points - we're clearly not favorites.

That said, I'm really impressed by the massive improvement in our squad over last year. And we look to be on track for another big jump in squad performance next season (e.g., E. Anderson will improve our squad tremendously). I hope that Pep stays at least one more year to win the title before he leaves us.
 
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How good are Arsenal? If they fail to win anything, then they'll be a laughing stock. But if they win the PL/CL double, they'll be regarded as the best in the world this season and better than most PL winners.
 
alexmcity said:
How good are Arsenal? If they fail to win anything, then they'll be a laughing stock. But if they win the PL/CL double, they'll be regarded as the best in the world this season and better than most PL winners.
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Bayern and PSG are far better than Arsenal. Anything can happen in a one-off match, but for my money, Arsenal isn't going to win the C/L. Bettors likely favor Arsenal to win at this point b/c Arsenal will likely advance to the final with more than 50% probability, whereas PSG and Bayern are in a one match playoff in Bayern's home stadium but with PSG ahead by one goal... it's basically a 50-50 chance as to which team advances.

Arsenal are obviously a good side, perhaps best in the P/L over the season. And maybe they'll win the C/L. But for me, Bayern is probably the best side in football with Barca/PSG second.
 
BlueMoonAcrossThePond said:
Bayern and PSG are far better than Arsenal. Anything can happen in a one-off match, but for my money, Arsenal isn't going to win the C/L.
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They are far better than Arsenal in attack, but both are worse in defence. It will be a more even game than some may think. Arsenal are really good at suffocating the opposition. But Bayern/PSG will be favourites.
 
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