3 games lost already. Can we still win the league?

[Bridge'srightfoot]

I wouldn't obsess with working out how many times we can afford to lose. 3 losses and 3 wins is better than 6 draws...
The reality is the league this season already looks far more competitive then it has done from many years. I have no doubt that a couple will drop off the pace, Southampton, Everton and then probably Tottenham but Arsenal and Liverpool look great this year, Chelsea will be up there and so too will the Rags.

We have a good chance to win the league this season but so to do a few others. The main thing however will be staying in contention, rather than surrendering the League by Christmas like we did last year.

Already though I've had more enjoyment than I did in the whole of last season. The football we've played at times has been brilliant to watch. And we've seen far less of the slow, tippy tap, tear your hair out in frustration football that Mancini seemed to like playing. We've seen fast paced, more penetrative football. We've become far, far better at crossing the ball and threatening from wide areas.

I'm not saying we'll definitely win the league but I am absolutely certain we'll put up a far better challenge then we did last year.

[Breks]

i was just interested thats all. I agree with your point about it being more entertaining than last season. It is better to win 1 then lose 1 than drawing 2. I see us losing more games this year than last but i can also see us getting less draws.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

i was just interested thats all. I agree with your point about it being more entertaining than last season. It is better to win 1 then lose 1 than drawing 2. I see us losing more games this year than last but i can also see us getting less draws.

I think the nature of our attacking football means we will ultimately both win more and lose more this season. Which is fine as it still gives us more points. But I do think the winning points total will be lower this season as there does appear to be a good 4/5 teams who can challenge this time round.
The problem at the moment is that every time we take a step forward we take two back. We battered Newcastle then lost to Cardiff, took apart the Rags and then lost to Villa, then we get 3 nice wins v Everton, West Ham and CSKA and look to be on a run and lose to Chelsea with a defensive howler. We just need to get going and I'm sure the individual mistakes will be ironed out.

I'm still excited for this season.

[Ted Hughes]

i was just interested thats all. I agree with your point about it being more entertaining than last season. It is better to win 1 then lose 1 than drawing 2. I see us losing more games this year than last but i can also see us getting less draws.

I think the nature of our attacking football means we will ultimately both win more and lose more this season. Which is fine as it still gives us more points. But I do think the winning points total will be lower this season as there does appear to be a good 4/5 teams who can challenge this time round.
The problem at the moment is that every time we take a step forward we take two back. We battered Newcastle then lost to Cardiff, took apart the Rags and then lost to Villa, then we get 3 nice wins v Everton, West Ham and CSKA and look to be on a run and lose to Chelsea with a defensive howler. We just need to get going and I'm sure the individual mistakes will be ironed out.

I'm still excited for this season.

Agree 100%.

Without having all the league bending over handing the rags victories on a plate every single week, teams at the top will win some & lose/draw some & we will have a genuine competition where the top teams drop points, rather than a procession, like the league used to be, where you draw 2 games & find yourself out of the race.

Chelsea won't win every week & neither will Arsenal. It's more like the old days where it's a proper contest.

I recon we will actually become the team which keeps winning every week, if anyone does; once we get our shit together at the back.

[Peter Doherty (AGAIG)]

Are we able to win it? Yes. Will we win it? No, not with comical goalkeeping/defending.

[Wooders]

Pellegrini inherited a "previously" successful team - a team that had won nothing for a year and 2 embarrassing champs league exits on the trot - let's keep it honest lads

[nottsblue]

Agreed on the problem areas and need to sort, but sadly with Kompany now absent so often its gone beyond a joke, you simply cannot see this team putting together a 10-12 game winning streak that it now needs to do.

We look a classic Cup side, who can beat or lose to anyone on any given day. With that in mind I do hope we take the Capital One and FA Cups with extreme seriousness this year as they are looking realistically like the only things we can win.

Call me old fashioned but Id take 4th spot and a Capital One Cup win right now if you offered it to me.

Are we able to win it? Yes. Will we win it? No, not with comical goalkeeping/defending.

Agree with you there lads. Anyone of 8 teams CAN win it. In all likelihood 2/3 WILL win it. I class us with Chelsea & the Arse as teams who will win it and if we are to be victorious the defence & individuals needs to be on fire from hereonin. Personally i think Chel will ultimately be champs as i dont think Pellegrini can turn defence round quick enough. Hope i'm wrong but there you go.

I'm with Goat on taking 4th with a pot. Cups are the currency of good sides & we've not won a lot of them in my lifetime. 3 as it goes. No one remembers 2nd or 3rd & no trophies. Look at Arse. Wenger does a great job but is under pressure due to dust in trophy room rather than pledge

[walmai]

My take is that you can of course win it, but that you ought to consider, by and large, the season to be a success if, for instance, you come 2nd (or 3rd) but get much further than Mancini got you in the CL.

The reality domestically is that it would be a pretty remarkable achievement for Pellegrini to out-strip Mourinho this season, given that its his first in the Prem. However, Chelsea (and Arsenal at a push) are your only sensible opponents.

I think, however, and it pains me to type this, that Mourinho knows what it takes to lose as few games as possible, whilst getting a last good season out of Cech, Terry, Cole together in the same defence.

Defence is what it will turn on; you've clearly got better strikers.

[tc6828]

I think we can.

Even though we have lost 3 games, it is not because we have been collectively shit.In fact in those games we have played very well as a team. Our away performances have been much better, and there is reason for much optimism.

The 3 defeats have come about only from diabolical goal keeping. We need to drop the goal keeper. I don't care he is England's number 1,he isn't our number 1 and he is costing us big time.

Take out Harts errors and we would be sitting pretty at the top off the League.

that is exactly what we need to do. We rectify the situation by stop hemorrhaging points from goal keeping errors. It wont be a popular decision, but the right thing to do is often the hardest.

We give Pantimillion and extended run in the team between now and January and then review the situation, we then decide do we persevere with Pantimillion because those errors have been eradicated and he has proved his worth, or do we give Hart another chance because Pantimillion is not the answer. Or do we simply buy a new keeper.

Not taking action is not an option. Failure to act will not only jeopardize our campaign for the title, it could jeopardize our top 4 place. Joe has been given enough chances.

If we do nothing but hope that Joe comes good again after being in decline for the last 18 months, then our season will be effectively over.

This is also my view. If Hart played in any other position, he would be lucky to make the bench

[everyonehatesus]

Not a cat in hells chance, and dont worry about the 3 we have lost its the other games we will lose. I can see us dropping a good few more points simply because of the nature we are doing so, its simple foolish IMO to think otherwise as we are shocking when it counts and I dont think it will change anytime soon with the set up we now have.
I was looking forward to this season so much, I fell for some of the reports I had read about the new manager and got sucked in. Top 4 IF we are lucky and a good cup run, as for the champs league we are still way out of our depth when it comes to the crunch.

[bobadji]

best squad in the league, at times (important word) playing the best football in the league with a new manager who has had something like 12 competitive games to get his style across. Thought we were the better team yesterday and we'll piss the league. Easy.

[everyonehatesus]

best squad in the league, at times (important word) playing the best football in the league with a new manager who has had something like 12 competitive games to get his style across. Thought we were the better team yesterday and we'll piss the league. Easy.

Arsenal have played the best football most seasons for 6 or 7 years and its got them sod all. We have no spine and lack any form of killer instinct.

[bobadji]

best squad in the league, at times (important word) playing the best football in the league with a new manager who has had something like 12 competitive games to get his style across. Thought we were the better team yesterday and we'll piss the league. Easy.

Arsenal have played the best football most seasons for 6 or 7 years and its got them sod all. We have no spine and lack any form of killer instinct.

reckon aguero would disagree with the lack of killer instinct. In fact we are the top goalscorers in the league I hardly think we need to be worrying about a lack of killer fucking instinct.
we're defending in a different way to last year (shit yeah easy joke nice one) and it's gunna take time to adjust especially without the best centre half in the league, who is both a fantastic defender and a great leader and organiser. it's hardly panic stations

EDIT - on a slightly worrying note though, think clichy is looking absolutley absymal and found it weird he hasn't been singled out more. and zabba been poor too, i could be wrong but im sure torres' wild miss was due to zabs playing him onside, something he's done a couple times this year in other games.

[everyonehatesus]

best squad in the league, at times (important word) playing the best football in the league with a new manager who has had something like 12 competitive games to get his style across. Thought we were the better team yesterday and we'll piss the league. Easy.

Arsenal have played the best football most seasons for 6 or 7 years and its got them sod all. We have no spine and lack any form of killer instinct.

reckon aguero would disagree with the lack of killer instinct. In fact we are the top goalscorers in the league I hardly think we need to be worrying about a lack of killer fucking instinct.
we're defending in a different way to last year (shit yeah easy joke nice one) and it's gunna take time to adjust especially without the best centre half in the league, who is both a fantastic defender and a great leader and organiser. it's hardly panic stations

EDIT - on a slightly worrying note though, think clichy is looking absolutley absymal and found it weird he hasn't been singled out more. and zabba been poor too, i could be wrong but im sure torres' wild miss was due to zabs playing him onside, something he's done a couple times this year in other games.

By killer instinct I mean finishing teams off not simply scoring goals. We have dropped points from waisting to many chances at important stages of the game, I do think its a worry how we are going about defending and dont think its going to change anywhere near fast enough to keep intouch of the title. I would love to be proven wrong in the fullness of time but sadly I believe the set up he is going for may be one that see's us one step behind untill its too late for this season.

[Beefymcfc]

I have every confidence that we will be in or around the top spot come the end of the season. If, for some reason, we are floundering then I won't be looking at the manager, I'll be looking at certain players, once again.

[Lev Bronstein]

There are a maximum 114 points that can be won, 90 points is usually enough to win the league (although I think it'll be less this year), we've already dropped 11. So yes, we can win the league, but, we can't afford too many more dropped bollocks.

As to comparisons between Bobby and the Count. I take John68's point that Bobby took us along the evolutionary path and all that. But, he was also in a position to create a template for us (we didn't really have one with Hughes). MP is expected to improve on Mancini's - a trickier task.

Sure Pellagrini was left an excellent squad but, Bobby inherited VK, Zabba, NDG, Lescott, Joe, Gareth Barry, Kolo Toure and Carlos Tevez. Not too shabby.

The decline of our defence is worrying, and some have criticised MP for not addressing the problem earlier. However last season our defence was the strength of the team. I'm not going to hold it against him that he didn't see the need to make wholesale changes.

Maybe Bobby felt that the defence was starting to creak, maybe Platt's comments re Joe Hart was a sign of the thinking at the time that we needed an upgrade. But then, they were working with the players every day and could see what was coming before anyone else could, and those insights were lost.

These are the risks you run when you change managers.

[sheblue]

Yes we can. It has been a funny season so far. Nobody would have predicted the top three we have at the moment. I think who ever wins it will also loose a record number of games for champions in the season. All of the contenders including us will loose more games and the league will be win with a low points tally.

If we get panti in and komp back for a consistent run in the team we still have a great chance.
Vinny is vital to this team.

[clawbaggio]

Sunday's ridiculous effort certainly hasn't helped. Instead of staying 1 point behind our main rivals we are now 4.
We seem to be able to lose games from a winning position, not a good trait for potential champions.
MP has given CL more priority than the Prem and it is backfiring on us. We have no chance of winning CL and have made it a tough task to win the PL now.

[Original Dub]

Sunday's ridiculous effort certainly hasn't helped. Instead of staying 1 point behind our main rivals we are now 4.
We seem to be able to lose games from a winning position, not a good trait for potential champions.
MP has given CL more priority than the Prem and it is backfiring on us. We have no chance of winning CL and have made it a tough task to win the PL now.

Ridiculous effort? ?

I was well impressed until that freak bollock drop.

[MilnersJaw]

Why are people blaming the manager? Te amount of individual errors is what's costing us, not the manager. Although playin joe at all is his fault and Garcia.