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Anyone got the feeling that City are about to go on a bender? I have a feeling that the Arsenal result will have boosted the confidence of the team in the same way that Mancini said that the draw in the derby gave the players a real solid sense of what they are capable of.. and that without the key men in attack to take the pressure off us.

Since the Birmingham game City have stepped it up and since that game have a return of 2.2 pts/game at home and 2.25pts/game away. In normal circumstances that is title winning form or thereabouts.

With Dzeko coming in and us more unlikely to be without a striker again and hopefully less wasteful in front of goal too, there is now reasonable reason to believe we can improve on what we have been like since Birmingham. Most of our problems have come from not finishing off our chances, namely Stoke and Everton. Dzeko gives defences something completely different to have to worry about and allows us to vary our play in ways we haven't been able to at all yet.

Anyways the sum total of it is that we need to aim for 80pts. That is roughly what the rags will land on their current form taking into account their weaker away record.

80pts is a big ask for City to take from 16 games, it requires a slight improvement again on what we have seen since brum and basically boils down to something like allowing only 2 losses and 2 draws in the rest of the season.
That's as tight as a gnats arse.. but then that is what challenging is all about. Key games could well be getting something out of the Derby and Stamford Bridge games and not losing. That would allow us to fucl up as per usual v Everton and Spurs and still be in with a shout of winning the league.

Im not suggesting this is going to happen i'm just looking at it to see what basically is the task at hand for the rest of the season.
We have improved in the last 10 games.. if Dzeko helps us improve some more and the rags dont we are in with a shout.

Theoretically the 4 most tricky games left are the Derby, Chelsea away, Everton away and Spurs at home.

We had 32 points after the everton game, after the final whistle was exactly half way through the season.

Threfore we'd be lucky to get 70 points, historically this would not always be good enough for 4th, however this season the points are nothing like previous years given so many strange stumbles etc.. (eg Chelsea's current form and the fact that we are 2 points off the top despite dropping points to Spurs, Blackburn, Arsenal, Wolves, Stretford, Birmingham, Stoke and Everton)

Therefore I think to set a points target is a little silly, the target should be based on league position and/or success.

If we want to win the league I would say 80 is a minimum. 2 points average per game (76) I don't think has ever won the title and even with " everybody beating everybody else" I don't think it will this year either. Currently we have 42 after 22 games so if we win our next 2 games we will be on target for the 2 points average.

That would leave us with 14 games to get not just 28 points( 2 points per game) but 4 extra points and that is anything but easy as they include Spurs at home ( megabogey team) and Chelsea,Scum away. Lets say we draw those 3 games and it will leave us with 11 games and we would need 29 points from 11 games. 9 wins and 2 draws. I still reckon we wouldnt win the lague with 80 points but it would 100% gtee a CL place. Scary really that we could go unbeaten in the next 16 games with 11 wins and 5 draws and still only manage 2nd!

All this proves is that it's loony to try to look too far ahead. Let's just batter Leicester and give the FA cup a real go.

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:If we want to win the league I would say 80 is a minimum. 2 points average per game (76) I don't think has ever won the title and even with " everybody beating everybody else" I don't think it will this year either. Currently we have 42 after 22 games so if we win our next 2 games we will be on target for the 2 points average.

That would leave us with 14 games to get not just 28 points( 2 points per game) but 4 extra points and that is anything but easy as they include Spurs at home ( megabogey team) and Chelsea,Scum away. Lets say we draw those 3 games and it will leave us with 11 games and we would need 29 points from 11 games. 9 wins and 2 draws. I still reckon we wouldnt win the lague with 80 points but it would 100% gtee a CL place. Scary really that we could go unbeaten in the next 16 games with 11 wins and 5 draws and still only manage 2nd!

All this proves is that it's loony to try to look too far ahead. Let's just batter Leicester and give the FA cup a real go.

I disagree.

On average, the team finishing second has 71-72 points.

Even in a crazy season where everybody seems to be taking points off everybody else I reckon 74-75 points would be enough to secure second place.

If we finish with 75 points or more I would be surprised if we didn't win the league.

Here are the average points totals over the last 10 years, does anyone seriously think that this season is going to score this highly? I dont.

1st....2nd
86......85
90......86
87......85
89......83
91......83
95......83
90......79
83......78
87......80
80......70

Average 1st = 87.8
Average 2nd = 81.2

This season will probably not even be close to that.

King Kev wrote:

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:If we want to win the league I would say 80 is a minimum. 2 points average per game (76) I don't think has ever won the title and even with " everybody beating everybody else" I don't think it will this year either. Currently we have 42 after 22 games so if we win our next 2 games we will be on target for the 2 points average.

That would leave us with 14 games to get not just 28 points( 2 points per game) but 4 extra points and that is anything but easy as they include Spurs at home ( megabogey team) and Chelsea,Scum away. Lets say we draw those 3 games and it will leave us with 11 games and we would need 29 points from 11 games. 9 wins and 2 draws. I still reckon we wouldnt win the lague with 80 points but it would 100% gtee a CL place. Scary really that we could go unbeaten in the next 16 games with 11 wins and 5 draws and still only manage 2nd!

All this proves is that it's loony to try to look too far ahead. Let's just batter Leicester and give the FA cup a real go.

I disagree.

On average, the team finishing second has 71-72 points.

Even in a crazy season where everybody seems to be taking points off everybody else I reckon 74-75 points would be enough to secure second place.

If we finish with 75 points or more I would be surprised if we didn't win the league.

Looking at the stats above KK it doesnt support your argument. Are they the right stats or were you looking at the Ethiopian Prem?

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:

King Kev wrote:

Douglas Higginbottom wrote:If we want to win the league I would say 80 is a minimum. 2 points average per game (76) I don't think has ever won the title and even with " everybody beating everybody else" I don't think it will this year either. Currently we have 42 after 22 games so if we win our next 2 games we will be on target for the 2 points average.

That would leave us with 14 games to get not just 28 points( 2 points per game) but 4 extra points and that is anything but easy as they include Spurs at home ( megabogey team) and Chelsea,Scum away. Lets say we draw those 3 games and it will leave us with 11 games and we would need 29 points from 11 games. 9 wins and 2 draws. I still reckon we wouldnt win the lague with 80 points but it would 100% gtee a CL place. Scary really that we could go unbeaten in the next 16 games with 11 wins and 5 draws and still only manage 2nd!

All this proves is that it's loony to try to look too far ahead. Let's just batter Leicester and give the FA cup a real go.

I disagree.

On average, the team finishing second has 71-72 points.

Even in a crazy season where everybody seems to be taking points off everybody else I reckon 74-75 points would be enough to secure second place.

If we finish with 75 points or more I would be surprised if we didn't win the league.

Looking at the stats above KK it doesnt support your argument. Are they the right stats or were you looking at the Ethiopian Prem?

Oh bollocks!

Ok I admit I didn't check the last few seasons as I was trying to do something else at the same time. The last few seasons have pushed the average up quite considerably so your figures are more accurate.

Also if the current top of the league did manage to achieve the above mentioned 2 points per game then they would be on 80 points which would not have been good enough for 2nd place for the last 6 years.

Well as Doug says it is not worth getting carried away about, it is only a reality check if you like on what sort of form is required.
On their present course the rags are only going to land 80pts. They may get about 83 in the end and at the current trend in the league that would probably win it. 80 would be as tight as a preverbial and could be decided by GD.

Anyway the point being that we can only afford to lose 2 and draw 2.. or draw 5 in total. That is a big ask and we will have to improve. At present i think we can do it, partly because as a club we are trying to do something about our weaknesses.. ie Dzeko coming in.

I actually think the rags will finsh third and are overdue a big form slump. I watched them against West Brom for the first time in ages and they looked very poor.

And another thing. Just because we are signing Dzeko doesn't necessarily mean goals are going to flow. His lack of pace will count against him early on whilst he adapts. Balo is the one I expect to really come good over the next couple of months.

dazby wrote:I actually think the rags will finsh third and are overdue a big form slump. I watched them against West Brom for the first time in ages and they looked very poor.

And another thing. Just because we are signing Dzeko doesn't necessarily mean goals are going to flow. His lack of pace will count against him early on whilst he adapts. Balo is the one I expect to really come good over the next couple of months.

Happy New Year Dazber! sorry to hear about the trouble trying to get back the burnt cricket bail, anyways i hope you are right about the rags suffering, they do look poor.. in fact really poor but yet keep squeeking results... it has to break at some point.. hopefully we can help that in the derby.

The only point of the thread was that by taking what at the moment are the most consistent team and projecting what the end result will be to give an idea of what theoretically we are up against. In other words if City can up their game enough to land about 80pts we will be in with a serious shout.
Arsenal have already dropped more points at home than the whole of last season for the quite simple reason that their defence has weaknesses and at home they go on attack leaving themselves more vunerable, it is difficult to see how they are going to change that before summer. Chelsea seem to be in the shit and have no resources to change that either, the rags could improve but also could get found out and as you say go on a slump, Spurs are about as good as they are going to get already. That leaves us, who have been slowly improving already and have good reason to be confident of improving further.. which are: the buys that were injured and late getting started will get more up to speed, so Balotelli, Kolarov and Boateng may contribute more.. even Yaya and Silva will get to know the play and players more.. and now Dzeko will add another dimension to our attack. Now it isn't all about him bagging goals.. it is the idea that he gives us at least two other ways of playing in attack, that in itself will put pressure on defences, particularly the ones that hold back and are stubborn to break down, the Dzeko effect will give other players more space and time and clearer opportunities. The attack in general will be less predictable and much wider in its repertoire of approaches.. bottom line is it will increase our creativity and so scare defences even more.
That is why as it looks at the moment City are the only team that are not just wanting to improve but are actually doing something about it. We may go back a few steps while trying to accomodate Dzeko, but ultimately we will get better and better.

So if we have a basic idea of a target that would in a general sense have us right on the cusp of bagging the title and the other teams fail to improve, ( apart from the rags the others would have to improve more than City ), then it is possible to gauge our chances as the season unfolds. If we can keep within 2 losses and 2 draws or less we are in with a shout.
Personally i am not righting off that we cannot improve enough to do that even if it is a big ask.

Oh and by the way, where and how did you come accross the idea that Dzeko's pace will be a hinderance? that was something started by the pickled Baconface and is completely wide of the mark, his pace is decent and not an issue.

Dzekos pace is an issue because I have watched him play. He does have a lot of tricks that will help him compensate.

So you are saying he is slow?

He's just not quick. He reminds me so much of Mark Viduka. He wasn't fast either but he made up for it in other aspects of his game.

maybe he is not quick, but that doesn't make him slow.. which for me at least doesn't become an issue. I've only seen him on TV and he looked quick enough, but then i dont know who he was up against. As you say his game is not based around speed, which tbh has probably made him a better player... Walcott is fast but also a waste of space half the time.

Anyway now we have got our greedy mitts on him it wont be long until we find out for ourselves ;)