Do you think...

[Beeks]

We as fans have set the bar too high in our first couple of seasons?

At best we were a mid to lower table team pre money...and a mid table team in the Thaksin era

Is it a case of expectations beyond where we should be at this stage of our development?

I hate the 'Well we've spent 200 million+' arguement

At the end of the day they are players not commodities and players have to gel with each other to become successful

But also at the same time we should be beating teams like god awful stoke

I'm at a loss to where we are in developing terms

I look at the table and see we are in the best position we have been for years yet I feel utterly deflated

[ant london]

if this clown stays I'd say we can add another two to this.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

We finished 10th last season and were kicked out of League Cup and FA Cup by mickey mouse clubs. So as a Club we are clearly making SOME sort of progress.

[Beeks]

The thing is at least Hughes had SOME backers...seems like Bobby has lost the majority of fans in a very short space of time...no mean feat

[viking the Odd]

We are an OK team no more, I think many believe our own hype, I don't, anything above a 7th in the league would be brilliant, the reason why we are so high in the league is players, the reason why we can't go higher than 7th, is the manager,if we want to win things we need a manager who knows how to, like it or not, O'neil, Rednap,Mouriniho, Wenger,Ferguson, take one of those and we would see a difference for sure, sacking a manager when we did was crazy,and replacing him with someone no better, is also crazy, and even crazier not letting him spend a few quid on a few players we need, there are obvious weaknesses to iron out, richest club in the world, maybe, but also the stupidist also.

[Blue Blood]

We finished 10th last season and were kicked out of League Cup and FA Cup by mickey mouse clubs. So as a Club we are clearly making SOME sort of progress.

That.

We are on course for our best seeason for 30-40 years, things arn't as bad as they feel atm. Losing to Stoke was rubbish granted but its better than getting a battering by Notts forest like what happened in the cup last year.

It's the money which is making us view things negatively, realistcally top 4 and a good cup run was the aim for this season but i'll be happy with a top 6 finish.

Truthfully we still need 2 or 3 transfer windows before we'll have the squad good enough to challenge for all the top honours.

Realistically we are still miles behind the big 3 atm imo BUT we are progressing well, we just all need to have patience AND this is the key point for me, the board need to pick a manager and back him for 5-10 years+. 1 season chop and change managers just don't work.

[lets all have a disco]

We finished 10th last season and were kicked out of League Cup and FA Cup by mickey mouse clubs. So as a Club we are clearly making SOME sort of progress.

Yes we are,but we put ourselves back 18 months sacking the old boss.

[Ted Hughes]

We finished 10th last season and were kicked out of League Cup and FA Cup by mickey mouse clubs. So as a Club we are clearly making SOME sort of progress.

Yes we are,but we put ourselves back 18 months sacking the old boss.

People just don't seem to understand the concept of that.

[Alex Sapphire]

The thing is at least Hughes had SOME backers...seems like Bobby has lost the majority of fans in a very short space of time...no mean feat

it's a case of live by the sword die by the sword.

He is learning about this group of players
he is learning about the prem
he is learning about English training methods/diet/tactics (even language)
he is learning about the spotlight Prem managers are under

and all of this in a context where Cook and Marwood set him up as the "solution" to our "problem", the man capable of getting us on the required "trajectory". It's not his fault, poor bugger.

I agree with you that we expect too much.
Chelsea proved that you can get a team from 4th to be competitive in Europe and win the Premiership by spending this kind of money. There is no precedent for doing it to a club that were 10th and who's natural position had become "just above the relegation zone".

We all love our club, but do any of us believe that Wigan, Wolves or Hull could be transformed within 3 years for 200 mill? Cos that's what it would be like.

[ant london]

we are progressing well

I must have missed something? Honestly mate, please enlighten me as to the progress you have seen us make since we changed manager?

[Alex Sapphire]

realistcally top 4 and a good cup run was the aim for this season but i'll be happy with a top 6 finish.

Truthfully we still need 2 or 3 transfer windows before we'll have the squad good enough to challenge for all the top honours.

Realistically we are still miles behind the big 3 atm imo BUT we are progressing well, we just all need to have patience

This is a Hughes quote, right?

[Bingo Lewis]

Well, the reason I'm not too happy is due to one problem.
We need Champions league to get the players we need for a title challenge.
Even with them players it'd take another 2 seasons minimum to win the prem. So if we'd have got 4th this season, we'd be challenging in 2 seasons, and if we don't get it, we've lost a season.
So its all good "being in transition", but after the £200m outlay, we should be transiting better than we are.
Our squad on paper is the 3rd best squad in the league IMO, so 4th should be achievable.

Just for the record, I said I'd be happy with 5th this season, but we should get 4th.
That still stands.

[ant london]

Well, the reason I'm not too happy is due to one problem.
We need Champions league to get the players we need for a title challenge.
Even with them players it'd take another 2 seasons minimum to win the prem. So if we'd have got 4th this season, we'd be challenging in 2 seasons, and if we don't get it, we've lost a season.
So its all good "being in transition", but after the £200m outlay, we should be transiting better than we are.
Our squad on paper is the 3rd best squad in the league IMO, so 4th should be achievable.

Just for the record, I said I'd be happy with 5th this season, but we should get 4th.
That still stands.

Agree with all that Bingo, I was pretty confident up until the last month or so that we were eminently capable of getting that 4th spot too.

But we have (been) turned to total shit.....on current form, with the run of games we have coming up and in the light of the form of our rivals I think we will be lucky to get into the Europa League next season.

And that is fucking wank

[CityFanFromRome]

We are an OK team no more, I think many believe our own hype, I don't, anything above a 7th in the league would be brilliant, the reason why we are so high in the league is players, the reason why we can't go higher than 7th, is the manager,if we want to win things we need a manager who knows how to, like it or not, O'neil, Rednap,Mouriniho, Wenger,Ferguson, take one of those and we would see a difference for sure, sacking a manager when we did was crazy,and replacing him with someone no better, is also crazy, and even crazier not letting him spend a few quid on a few players we need, there are obvious weaknesses to iron out, richest club in the world, maybe, but also the stupidist also.

I hope you're joking.

We finished 10th last season and were kicked out of League Cup and FA Cup by mickey mouse clubs. So as a Club we are clearly making SOME sort of progress.

Yes we are,but we put ourselves back 18 months sacking the old boss.

People just don't seem to understand the concept of that.

The question is though, how do you determine if the boss you have is going to be the one to deliver what we want or not? Sure, you can wait and see, but there will always someone saying "give him more time and we will get there". How long can you give a manager before deciding he's not the one?

These are questions without a definite answer imho, and the board won't have taken the decision to sack Hughes in a minute. They will have thought about it for a while, and finally came to the conclusion he wasn't going to achieve what they wanted the club to, so they sacked him. Mancini is not doing much better, to be honest, so maybe he's not the man either, but at least this time if rumours are true the board has a way out at the end of the season, and will have the chance to start clean with another one from the preseason, not midway through the campaign.

[lets all have a disco]

The thing is we had 1000000000000000000000000% improved on last season with Hughes as boss.

5th in the league after xmas,carling cup semi.

Easy run of games,hell even Mancini won those games.

[Blue Blood]

realistcally top 4 and a good cup run was the aim for this season but i'll be happy with a top 6 finish.

Truthfully we still need 2 or 3 transfer windows before we'll have the squad good enough to challenge for all the top honours.

Realistically we are still miles behind the big 3 atm imo BUT we are progressing well, we just all need to have patience

This is a Hughes quote, right?

haha ;D i knew someone would spot it.

[Ted Hughes]

Well, the reason I'm not too happy is due to one problem.
We need Champions league to get the players we need for a title challenge.
Even with them players it'd take another 2 seasons minimum to win the prem. So if we'd have got 4th this season, we'd be challenging in 2 seasons, and if we don't get it, we've lost a season.
So its all good "being in transition", but after the £200m outlay, we should be transiting better than we are.
Our squad on paper is the 3rd best squad in the league IMO, so 4th should be achievable.

Just for the record, I said I'd be happy with 5th this season, but we should get 4th.
That still stands.

Agree with all that Bingo, I was pretty confident up until the last month or so that we were eminently capable of getting that 4th spot too.

But we have (been) turned to total shit.....on current form, with the run of games we have coming up and in the light of the form of our rivals I think we will be lucky to get into the Europa League next season.

And that is fucking wank

Unfortunately that's exactly what the evidence suggests. We've all been waiting for some magical tactical change that suddenly clicks & we slip into 4th like a well oiled machine but so far the actual evidence suggests that we've changed from a top 4 contender to a top 7 contender & that the more decent teams we play against, the further down the league we'll sink.

We really need to produce something at Chelsea to put a spark back in the club as we're starting to get that Pearce feeling about the place (& that was before last night).

[Mike J]

i dont think we were expecting too much.

the main thing that mancini needed to do was sort out the defence (imo our attacking intent was mostly very good under hughes) and to a certain extent he has done that..... however he has completely fucked our attack up, useless tactics and fucking stupid team selections.

[Goaters 103]

Its the style of football thats depressing most of the fans at the moment. We haven't played well for far too long, aren't scoring goals and yet continue to concede some mickey mouse ones. Aside from the daft goal to Shawcross last night, the same player and another Stoke colleague behind him had a free header from 6 yards at the end of normal time and just missed it - the tie should have reached extra time but for that sitter.

By the end of Hughes reign we were conceding goals like confetti, 3 at Bolton, 3 at Spurs, 3 at home to Sunderland etc. Under Mancini we are conceding less but have sacrificed a lot of our cutting edge by regularly having 7-8 defensive players on the field. My belief being that neither Hughes nor the incumbent are a long term solution. Mancini's job is/was to either win a Cup, thats gone, or finish 4th and that too will probably be gone before mid-April as upcoming fixtures against Chelsea, Villa and Fulham away do not give much hope for many points given the way we are playing, or have played since the turn of the year.

With the squad of players we have, we should be well clear in 4th spot and be around the 52/53 point mark by now but all the points we pi$$ed away against the likes of Fulham, Burnley, Wigan, Hull, Bolton etc are coming home to roost right now.

Another season goes by and we start again in June. Instead of committing ultra millions in the playing staff, lets go out and recruit the top manager in the business in Mourinho, or if not Hiddink - if we aren't already under way with this I'd be a little disappointed.

The saddest indictment of us at the moment is that we are, truth be told, very boring to watch; it takes far too long for us to move the ball around the pitch, there's absolutely no snap in our play and of the only 2 creative players we have in the squad who can produce that bit of magic in the final third one is back in Brazil never to return, and the other (Ireland) looks totally lost and is playing like he has lead in his boots.

Should we get the predicted drubbing at Chelsea on saturday, then the inquests will start again and no doubt the press will have a field day on us but despite the slow climb up the table this year from mid-table to top 6, we have under-achieved big time with the squad we have, but that came undee the stewardship of both managers. Far too often this year the whole team has been a lot less than the sum of the parts and the buck for that stops at the manager/s door.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

Yes I do think the fans have set the bar too high for the first 2 seasons. Wasn't it supposed to be top 6 as the aim according to the owners when the season started? We heard a lot about building/developing the club from the bottom up and by all acounts a lot of time and effort had gone into this and the owners understood and fully bought into it in more ways than one.

What exactly happened to change their thinking I don't know but for sure there was a growing impatience within much of the fan base that we were underachieving that something had to be done.Did it really have to be done? I would say before Mancini we had 4 maybe 5 bad results. 3 home draws against Fulham , Burnley and Hull were poor , as was the away draw at Bolton and I would have to include the defeat at Spurs even though losing there might have been expected. Realistically if we had actually won 2 of the silly home draws Hughes would probably still have been manager.

Since then I think we have arguably had 9 poor performances. 2 have been wins so maybe I am being naughty there but we did play crap. 2 we might have expected to lose a la Spurs ( Everton and the scum) but 3 have been Stoke plus Hull and another that isnt a bad result but was a crap performance against Pool.

Worrying times for sure and because those fan expectations are so high it now seems to me there is an element of panic around because we don't look like achieving the success they want , even though it wasn't the clubs initial target for the year at the start of the year.

Is Mancini the right manager for us? I don't know for certain any better now than I did on day 1.Anyone who believed 100% that he was the right man was saying that as much in hope as in total confidence and from all that I am reading on this forum nowadays that confidence is in real decline. Should we change manager again? No way imo as I don't believe that is the right way to go about things and never have but I don't know what the owners will be thinking.

They showed their true colours when they removed Hughes and they may do the same again in the summer. The ultimate reason for a change in manager is if and when he loses the dressing room.No manager can survive if he has lost the dressing room. I am not talking about the odd player who is disruptive but the dressing room as a whole. NO way do I think that is the state of play at City at the moment but the press are on the case and that cannot be good.Something has to go right and quickly.