Will we win the league this season?

I think after some reflection on our signings and the CWC campaign, it's my opinion that Pep has no intention of solving the defensive issues per se, but looking to improve goal scoring.

My evidence: last season was our lowest scoring PL campaign under him, partly due to Haaland hitting lower form and being injured, and a lack of goal contributions from other players (e.g. Foden, De Bruyne, and wingers compared to departed Mahrez & Sterling). Concurrently last season was our worst for goals shipped BUT it wasn't that bad, you wouldn't want to ship any more than that but 25 to 45 should be the aim for a team challenging for the title.

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I think Pep is paying most attention to the attack. Goal difference is, alongside points if you can believe it, the strongest predictor of where you finish in the league. I.e. scoring more than the opposition is paramount (revelation!!) but it doesnt matter as much if they score or not, as long as you score more. The old adage of clean sheets winning you titles is not as powerful as simply outscoring the opponent. It just so happens that top teams keep clean sheets too.

Look at the players bought with defensive minds: Reis, Khusanov, Ait-Nouri..... thats' it. The third one is not really going to be deployed as a traditional full back. Right back continues to be Nunes, we use O'Reilly as a LB.

We've bought loads of attackers or non-defensive midfielders.

I think we are going to continue to see higher lines, chance creation, being caught on the break and slightly more chaos. This, i hope, will lead to more goals but the goals against? i dont think it will be addressed directly, just managed. Similar will be acceptable.

It's my belief he's turning the entire team into High Risk High Reward, not just the playing out from the back element.

Last thought: we were the best PL team in 2025, 40 points from 19 games (L'pool 39 pts from 20). It's going to continue.
 
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Damanino said:
older players not the issue. its what they do alongside younger ones. we had an old Walker in treble season. dippers had old Salah and old van Dijk last season. Inter had half of their starters above 30 yet reached CL final. wasnt the CB guy who scored that goal for them vs Barca something like 36 or 38 years old in the semis?

main issue Pep has been found out tactically and not yet having the right ideas. clearly he changed his staff to change ideas, tactics. why else would he say goodbye to Lillo and co? he knows what we had last 2 years wont be good enough tactically.

we are in a rut tactically mainly due to not being hungry and athletic enough off the ball, and we spent way too much time in practice playing being scared from counters due to weaknesses in the side, that now all what happens is us being punished.
we to eradicate weaknesses, like we dont press well so we need to hold the ball and pass slowly at all costs so we dont need to press that much in theory. this causes extra stress as players know if they lose the ball the they wont run back quick enough and defence will panic. so we lose the ball a lot more due to this stress and there comes the defensive panic and bad positioning quite often.

sadly much if comes from Pep.

the old players issue comes into here, they are stuck playing this system and want to change the least as it will lot harder for them. but its Pep who need to change the system first, yet to be seen if he can do it or wants to do it. we need to stop playing scared. new backroom staff can help but Pep needs to buy into it. once it happens then any player doesnt buy into it can be thanked and goodbye.
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We've seen it time and time again with our star players that their game deteriorates in their early 30s. Walker went on into his early 30s but then fell off the cliff. What we can say about age is that there are a few exceptions. And also a successful side needs a mix of experience. See Chelsea.

I don't know why you are so critical of Pep's tactics. The problem at the moment is injuries and the quality of the defensive players. We don't know how good Ries and Khusanov are going to be.

Pep imo did very well to get City into the CL qualification and he did so by adopting some very un-Pep-like tactics.
 
Marvin. said:
The CWC will have helped to an extent. We will have integrated the June signings into our squad.

Arsenal will be very strong if they sign a good forward. I am not sure about Liverpool because TAA has gone and Van Dijk and Salah are losing basic speed. We have seen similar happen to our best players like Walker and KDB and they can very quickly go from heroes to ineffective heroes. I do really like their signings though even if they probably over-paid for Wirtz. I don't know what to expect from Liverpool.

City have strengthened offensively, there is no doubt about that. But we also have not yet fixed our defending. We have started to leak goals and this should now be our focus. We can be reasonably confident I think that Rodri will recover gradually as he gets games but it's going to be a long road back. I still have faith in John Stones. I think it was good that he trained throughout the Club World Cup. I was a bit disappointed he never came on as I always thought that our only chance of beating PSG or to win the final would come if Stones was fit. Unfortunately we weren't good enough to get that far.
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You obviously have far more faith in Stones having an influential season than my cynical expectation of him signalling to the bench after 5 minutes (on more than one occasion) that his game is over.

I was hoping that this would be resolved but it would appear that next season we'll still be relying on Rodri, Stones, Bobb, and Ake to all stay fully fit and provide Pep with plenty of options
 
shemnel said:
I think after some reflection on our signings and the CWC campaign, it's my opinion that Pep has no intention of solving the defensive issues per se, but looking to improve goal scoring.

My evidence: last season was our lowest scoring PL campaign under him, partly due to Haaland hitting lower form and being injured, and a lack of goal contributions from other players (e.g. Foden, De Bruyne, and wingers compared to departed Mahrez & Sterling). Concurrently last season was our worst for goals shipped BUT it wasn't that bad, you wouldn't want to ship any more than that but 25 to 45 should be the aim for a team challenging for the title.

View attachment 161792

I think Pep is paying most attention to the attack. Goal difference is, alongside points if you can believe it, the strongest predictor of where you finish in the league. I.e. scoring more than the opposition is paramount (revelation!!) but it doesnt matter as much if they score or not, as long as you score more. The old adage of clean sheets winning you titles is not as powerful as simply outscoring the opponent. It just so happens that top teams keep clean sheets too.

Look at the players bought with defensive minds: Reis, Khusanov, Ait-Nouri..... thats' it. The third one is not really going to be deployed as a traditional full back. Right back continues to be Nunes, we use O'Reilly as a LB.

We've bought loads of attackers or non-defensive midfielders.

I think we are going to continue to see higher lines, chance creation, being caught on the break and slightly more chaos. This, i hope, will lead to more goals but the goals against? i dont think it will be addressed directly, just managed. Similar will be acceptable.

Last thought: we were the best PL team in 2025, 40 points from 19 games (L'pool 39 pts from 20). It's going to continue.
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Nice post. I was making a big deal about City's performance in 2025 but our game against Al Hilal brought home the importance of being difficult to score against. I think this is becoming a big weakness for City because we became more conservative last season, dropping wingers and playing wide full-backs and we achieved some success in that. But when we opened up at the CWC we conceded 4 goals v Al Hilal.

This defensive issue is largely Rodri injury related. And he's back. But we know it's a long road back, and hence I am less ambitious than usual in respect to next season. Logically we should improve.
 
Scaring Europe to Death said:
You obviously have far more faith in Stones having an influential season than my cynical expectation of him signalling to the bench after 5 minutes (on more than one occasion) that his game is over.

I was hoping that this would be resolved but it would appear that next season we'll still be relying on Rodri, Stones, Bobb, and Ake to all stay fully fit and provide Pep with plenty of options
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Well Stones had an have unusual injury, and seems to be over it. I can see him going if a club comes in for him but I also have some hope that he can play for us next season.
 
Marvin. said:
Nice post. I was making a big deal about City's performance in 2025 but our game against Al Hilal brought home the importance of being difficult to score against. I think this is becoming a big weakness for City because we became more conservative last season, dropping wingers and playing wide full-backs and we achieved some success in that. But when we opened up at the CWC we conceded 4 goals v Al Hilal.

This defensive issue is largely Rodri injury related. And he's back. But we know it's a long road back, and hence I am less ambitious than usual in respect to next season. Logically we should improve.
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I think the concept of 'high risk high reward' that we were brutally introduced to when Pep started playing out from the back was seen as almost belligerent by some, so much did he stick to it. It paid off with sackfulls of trophies and copy cat tactics down the entire football pyramid.

It's my belief he's turning the entire team into High Risk High Reward, not just the playing out from the back. I think he's playing shit or bust.
 
shemnel said:
I think the concept of 'high risk high reward' that we were brutally introduced to when Pep started playing out from the back was seen as almost belligerent by some, so much did he stick to it. It paid off with sackfulls of trophies and copy cat tactics down the entire football pyramid.

It's my belief he's turning the entire team into High Risk High Reward, not just the playing out from the back. I think he's playing shit or bust.
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Worked out okay for big Ange.
 
Yes, if pep decides a bit of cover is required in defence, when we have a corner
 
Marvin. said:
Well Stones had an have unusual injury, and seems to be over it. I can see him going if a club comes in for him but I also have some hope that he can play for us next season.
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He seems to be over it, but didn't play 1 second, yet rodri did.You talk in riddles.
 
You can't keep on defending like we've done and expect us to challenge the dippers to the title. Dippers will piss the league. Unlike us, they bought well in a position of strength.
 
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Might as well be liverpool the amount of times City fans are saying how great they are. Not just here, across the board.. Lfc have bought excellent players, they're teaching us how to run a club. fkin lick arses. All I heard from lfc fans when we were winning it all was how shit we were, how we are buying the league, how we support murderers.I guess oif the media tell you something enough times some fans will believe it.
 
citymad said:
You can't keep on defending like we've done and expect us to challenge the dippers to the title. Dippers will piss the league. Unlike us, they bought well in a position of strength.
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if we score 20 more than last season, and concede just about the same as last season, i think we win or at least strongly challenge.
 
Marvin. said:
Well Stones had an have unusual injury, and seems to be over it. I can see him going if a club comes in for him but I also have some hope that he can play for us next season.
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You never see a player described as "Well - he used to be injury prone!" Never resolves itself. He just can't stay fit. Stones should now be moved on like Walker as he's blocking the likes of Gonzales and Khusanov.
 
We won't unless he goes back to what defines Pep's football, which is controlling the game. Not one of the halves, but the whole bloody game. We'll do nothing if almost any team continue having 10+ shot attempts on our goal.
And do something about Haaland vs parked bus tactics, that thing is causing us innumerable problems. We are always a man down in the attacking phase, trying to compensate it with players from the defense being drawn to overload, only to end up with a few man down on the counterattacks.
But rewatching that "friendly" against Al Hilal, I don't know man, he's just went off too far away from his core footballing principles.
 
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