by john68 » Thu Apr 06, 2017 8:55 pm
Served cold, those stats make stark reading as they omit any qualifying factors.
I'm not sure what the expectations for City this season were on here, but I did think that the expectations of City fans I spoke to were far too high and the shite in the media was unsurprisingly sensationalist as usual.
That Pep was going to be an instant hti, walk away with League and change football in England was always abject nonsense as he himself stated.
His early statements were quite clear; "I am here to learn [about the Premier League and about City[, "I am not bothered about titles, I want [City] to play good football and do it well. If we do that, titles will come."
He also stated that last season that City were the oldest team in the League and that needed to be changed. We still remain one of the oldest.
If we take that as a starting point and understand that Pellergrini's title winning team was largely based on Mancini's and look at the ages of some of our stalwart players, we have to understand that this season was never going to be all conquering. It most definitely meant we were a team in transition, big transition, almost the whole team.
Looking ahead another 2 seasons from now, how many of last season,s squad could reliably be expected to be holding down a 1st team place?
Zaba, Kompany, Sagna Clichy, Otamendi, Kolarov, Yaya, Fernandinho,Silva, and some others all need to be replaced sometime in the quite near future.
Add to that a whole new way of playing, not just a simple way but one that requires the building of little triangles that constantly change,requiring players to constantly move position or stand still as the situation requires. New player positional requirements asking them to know when to move in, move out, up or back or simply stand still.
My thoughts were always that this was a season that could be largely written off in terms of honours won. That we are probably going to finish top four, still in the hunt for the FA Cup and went so far in the CL was as about as much as I felt I could hope for.
Flat track bullies according to the stark stats but really it shows our current level as a team in transition. We are still ahead of the pack but taking a dip, as we should really expect in our situation, compared to the top clubs.
The rags have been in transition for around 3yrs, Look what happened to them. L'Pool have been in transition since forever, look how we compare, Chelsea already had a squad that would serve them in the longer term before Pep took over, Arsenal I will leave to your own thoughts.
All things considered, I will accept what we got now but expect a huge improvement next season when we have sorted out our middle and defence.
I KNOW THAT YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU THINK I WROTE, BUT I AM NOT SURE YOU REALISE THAT WHAT YOU READ IS NOT WHAT I MEANT
