I was doing some thinking about how our season has gone this year and how we have done well against the other top 6 teams this year (which is a good sign). So because I was bored I figured I would look up the results of the top 6 head to head standings this year: CITY 8W0D2L: 24 points MUFC 6W1D3L: 19 points Spurs 4W1D5L: 13 points Pool 2W4D3L: 10 points Chelsea 2W2D5L: 8 points Arsenal 1W3D6L: 6 points City: City 5-0 Liverpool Chelsea 0-1 City City 3-1 Arsenal United 1-2 City City 4-1 Spurs Liverpool 4-3 City Arsenal 0-3 City City 1-0 Chelsea City 2-3 United Spurs 1-3 City Manchester United: United 0-0 Liverpool United 1-0 Tottenham Chelsea 1-0 United United 1-2 City Arsenal 1-3 United Tottenham 2-0 United United 2-1 Chelsea United 2-1 Liverpool City 2-3 United United 2-1 Arsenal Tottenham: Spurs 1-2 Chelsea Spurs 4-1 Liverpool United 1-0 Spurs Arsenal 2-0 Spurs CIty 4-1 Spurs SPurs 2-0 United Liverpool 2-2 Spurs Spurs 1-0 Arsenal Chelsea 1-3 Spurs Spurs 1-3 City Liverpool: Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal City 5-0 Liverpool Liverpool 0-0 United Spurs 4-1 Liverpool Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea Arsenal 3-3 Liverpool Liverpool 4-3 City Liverpool 2-2 Spurs United 2-1 Liverpool Chelsea: Tottenham 1-2 Chelsea Chelsea 0-0 Arsenal Chelsea 0-1 City Chelsea 1-0 United Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea Arsenal 2-2 Chelsea United 2-1 Chelsea CIty 1-0 Chelsea Chelsea 1-3 Spurs Arsenal: Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal Chelsea 0-0 Arsenal City 3-1 Arsenal Arsenal 2-0 Spurs Arsenal 1-3 United Arsenal 3-3 Liverpool Arsenal 2-2 Chelsea Spurs 1-0 Arsenal Arsenal 0-3 City United 2-1 Arsenal If this confirms anything, it's that we've had a pretty decent season and as Jose has said, we just need to find some consistency when playing the smaller clubs. Losses against Newcastle, West Brom and Huddersfield really hurt, as did our tie with Stoke City. That's 11 points dropped. Wouldn't have made any difference in the table this year, but it definitely would have made it a lot more interesting. This also shows just how bad Arsenal really are. 6 out of a possible 30 points is just horrible. Whoever takes over as their manager really has their work cut out for them. Hopefully they can rebound. I miss the days when our matches against them were the two that I circled on the calendar first...
Results in terms of points will always be favourable towards Mourinho. That's what he does, he plays the numbers and gets results. And as much of an improvement that it is over the past few years, it is not enough. I'd like us to approach the big games more positively, and not have more Sevilla-esque performances. Our first win against Arsenal was very encouraging, but most of the other games have been dour and defensive. Also, here's another stat that is telling in this mini league - Goals Scored, Conceded and Difference: Club - F/A/GD City: 27/11/16 United: 12/9/3 Spurs: 15/16/-1 Liverpool: 16/20/-4 Chelsea: 8/11/-3 Arsenal: 10/21/-11 We have conceded the least number of goals to the top six, but we really need to ramp up that Goals For column. City have scored more than twice the number we have, while conceding only two more.
The Sevilla match is going to hurt for a while. You would think that we would beat them at home. Wasn't even close. But I will take some positives in that while we may have lost a couple of those games against Chelsea, Tottenham and City, we also beat every team in the top 6. We are getting there and will end with a good season points wise. Obviously not good enough, but that's because City has had an outstanding season....
Great stuff, what has cost us this season in the league however is: - The Huddersfield game. - The 3 draws around Christmas. - Newcastle game. - West Brom. 3 + 6 + 3 + 3 = 15 points. If we got the win in these games then we'd be on 92 points, 1 point behind Manchester City who are currently on 93 points. Then the main difference separating us would be the Old Trafford loss to Manchester City. Suppose we drew with Man City at old trafford and only drew 1 game around christmas but won the other mentioned games. Then we'd be on 91 points, 1 up to City's 90 points.
Plus as seen previously who knows how the pressure of not being out of sight point wise might have affected Pep or City.
We are the second best team in the league. We need to do even better next year and I am confident we can do it.
Well you could see it before Christmas - they needed a few 90th minute winners when we were close to them. Then we bent over for them, gave them a lot of breathing room and they smashed the rest of the festive games up until Liverpool when it was too late.
Well, by that logic, basically we have to be almost like the Invincibles to get there. And credit to City, they nearly did do it bar the losses to us and Liverpool. It is all well to say we should have won this and that, but rarely do top teams go through entire campaigns without dropping silly points to fodder (losing easy-to-win or draw games). Safe to say nobody anticipated City would do it, so this is a new height we have to scale next season.
Those games happen every season though. Think it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. If we had won those, we'd be achieving City's level of consistency, which is certainly not the norm given that they're about the smash the points record. Regarding next season, I don't know whether it's less likely for City's consistency to drop or for ours to catch up.
Basically we had to have a perfect season to even get close to City. Shows how good they have been this season. We can't bash ourselves up for not winning the league this year. A similar or slightly improved performance next year could win us the league as I don't expect a repeat of this season from City.
I feel as if we didn't have some of those draws and losses early on City would have played with more pressure and less freedom and dropped a lot more points through out the season. City's performance against Liverpool in the CL showed once the pressure is truly on its not all about skill and talent just a shame they never felt the pressure once this PL season due to how clear on top of the table they were so early in the season.
Nope we had to just stay close to them, and wait for some cracks to appear. Like most teams they're great front runners - but begin to wobble a little when you put them under some pressure. Was watching the PL 04/05 season review a few days ago and Chelsea actually didn't look as formidable as I remember them. They racked up a record number but most of them were in the second half of the season once they had some breathing room (after Arsenal dropped a lot points), in the first half they had a shaky run of games. In 06/07 we turned up the pressure from the start and for the first time they started to crack up.
I believe some posters will be surprised when they watch City next season. I expect them to do very well both in the prem and CL. Their young forwards will mature and they will reinforce their squad further. However, I hope we give them a true run for their money though, as another curtains before New Year would mean that we have not got any closer to challenging for the title
I feel that City game at OT affected the team a bit, especially the way we conceded the two goals. City didn't create any major chances and when we created the biggest chance neither Lukaku nor Mata could finish it. IIRC Lukaku said something like it was a difficult period for him or something. If we had drawn or beaten City at OT, things would have been way different,especially our attitude in many games we drew, the players knew there was nothing to fight for Also as many have said, with a team breathing down your neck, things become a lot tougher, with the pressure. Not to mention the number of last minute goals City scored and the injury to Morata which meant Chelsea played without a striker for 2/3 of the game and the Mane red card. I also feel Spurs got their tactics wrong in both the games l, resulting in them getting spanked. So although City has had an incredible season, they did have luck on their side
City will have a better squad next season. Half of their playes are 23-24 y.o. and are likely to get better. Plus they will have Mendy and 2-3 new signings. They are not likely to hit 100 pts but will comfortably make 90 pts. We have to break our points record (91) to seriously compete for the title. Guardiola teams are incredibly consistent in the league. Jose is doing a fine job though. If the team wins 90 pts next season (which is perfectly possible with new signings), there won't be many critics.
I actually wouldn't bother too much about GD vs top 6. As long as we get 3 points in a match against them, don't care about GD. GD needs to be built by bullying the smaller teams (unfortunately, we seem to have no clue on how to do that, totally lost momentum after the first 8 matches)
I think what's more annoying was City before Christmas seem to get about 3-4 wins in stoppage time from unlikely scorers like Sterling who couldn't hit a barn door. They've had their fair share of luck throughout the season but you need to in order to be Champions.
They really were so far clear by December. Pep's teams always seem to start brightly, you can rest assured that next season City will probably win their first 10 games. I think its down to superior fitness levels compared to other teams at the start of the season. it is imperative to start the season strongly to keep up the pressure on them. As with the last two seasons, eyes will be on that first derby game, when we can again assess how close, or indeed far we are from challenging them.
City home, Liverpool away, Chelsea away we dropped points but had injuries in midfield (Fellaini & Pogba) as well.
I remember the Rantcast guys saying a few months ago that Jose's record against the top teams in recent times was not good enough. Well, they were proven wrong about that this season.
The Chelsea one is particularly annoying given everyone has beaten them at the Bridge this season, Jose set us up way to open that day
But..but.. I thought we're shite in big games and Mourinho's style is outdated in them ?! What costed us the league this season is the results against Huddersfield, Burnley, South, Newcastle and WBA not these games as some were claiming earlier.
I would add Leicester City 2 points as well, that is 13 points unforced error, making us 87 points, just 3 behind City. Food for thought.
Up until the Chelsea match at Old Trafford, it was still a genuine question. Especially with how we setup in the games. From there we beat Chelsea, Liverpool, City away and now Arsenal. Really depends on when you asked the question.
Well yes, if you ask the question by looking at 15/16 where his team downed tools and were in the bottom half. Or you look at 16/17 where we couldn't hit a barn door and became draw-chester united. If you actually look at his whole career, he is a big game specialist having won several league title and multiple CL titles due to big game performances.
Which is literally 4 points off what we could get this season if we beat Brighton, West Ham and Watford.
The most disappointing part about that draw was that our best player (De Gea) was at fault for it. A 35 yard cross that land 3 yards from his back post should have been easily dealt with by him rather than tapped in. Obviously I can't be too upset about though considering all the times he has bailed us out...
That wasn't the reason we lost, though. We got it wrong, tactically, like he said, and they drubbed us. Morata missed a one on one that my nan could have put away. Kante, Hazard, and pretty much everyone missed some gimmies. I felt that the score wasn't reflective of how badly we had played, back then. And I remember most on here castigating the way we approached the match. In any case, not too bad overall. Could be improved if we want to challenge City to the title as could the results against the midtable teams we stopped points at. It's going to be a tough challenge ahead but we better get our heads right and start strong.
