Positive Thread (the old title was a joke)

SER19

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This is obviously one place lower than we want to be, but for the first time since sir Alex left we can say with confidence that we are a better team than Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham. Okay, debate can be welcomed regarding this but under moyes, two years under lvg and last year under Jose we couldn't have made that claim with a straight face.

It's been great progress. I've been thinking about it in the last week and it's obvious to me, that city's form is making us all feel a lot worse about things and makes us feel further away than ever, despite the fact this is the best we've been in 5 years.

There's no way City will ever replicate a season like this. Not a chance. Had we finished a close second to city or Chelsea in a tight race this season I think many would be glad to be up there. City's runaway season is altering reality for us.

For me making sure we just focus on us this season, keep getting good results, hopefully a cup or miracle run in Europe and keep Jose motivated and ready for the challenge.

Overall with all the doom and gloom, we are in a position that seemed an impossibility at many times in recent years. One more step to make

If somebody can point out where this post celebrates being second or implies that it's good enough please point it out. We can talk about progress without saying we think it's enough
 
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Paxi

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Yeah, it's just one more step. It'll come. I'm confident of that.
 

Dobbs

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This is obviously one place lower than we want to be, but for the first time since sir Alex left we can say with confidence that we are a better team than Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham. Okay, debate can be welcomed regarding this but under moyes, two years under lvg and last year under Jose we couldn't have made that claim with a straight face.

It's been great progress. I've been thinking about it in the last week and it's obvious to me, that city's form is making us all feel a lot worse about things and makes us feel further away than ever, despite the fact this is the best we've been in 5 years.

There's no way City will ever replicate a season like this. Not a chance. Had we finished a close second to city or Chelsea in a tight race this season I think many would be glad to be up there. City's runaway season is altering reality for us.

For me making sure we just focus on us this season, keep getting good results, hopefully a cup or miracle run in Europe and keep Jose motivated and ready for the challenge.

Overall with all the doom and gloom, we are in a position that seemed an impossibility at many times in recent years. One more step to make
Really? With all the money we're spending I always thought it likely we'd be back around top spot. As soon as we got a manager who was good in the transfer market(Mourinho is) we were always going to leap above Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool.
 

SER19

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Can we really say "with confidence" that we're better than the current champions? A side that have beaten us already this season, were worthy of the win, and are currently on the same points as us?
Yeah at least with the confidence that it's fair to argue, having had them be much much better than us in the past years. As I said of course open to debate but right now I think we're the best behind city
 

SER19

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Really? With all the money we're spending I always thought it likely we'd be back around top pot. As soon as we got a manager who was good in the transfer market(Mourinho is) we were always going to leap above Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool.
That's what I felt once but seeing the money used by moyes then van gaal take us nowhere it was seeming like a long long way back.


We finished 6th last year remember folks, and it's where we deserved
 

ivaldo

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Can we really say "with confidence" that we're better than the current champions? A side that have beaten us already this season, were worthy of the win, and are currently on the same points as us?
Yes. :D
 

Summit

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We are currently sitting in second with the season under half played. Jesus H Christ.
 

Summit

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There's no way City will ever replicate a season like this. Not a chance.
Is this the same as people saying that no way in hell Pep would be able to come here and dominate like he did at Bayern and Barca?

You know...PL is so much tougher...no easy games...
 
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Yeah at least with the confidence that it's fair to argue, having had them be much much better than us in the past years. As I said of course open to debate but right now I think we're the best behind city
That's not what you said in the OP though, you claimed that we can confidently say we're the second best team in the league, and well, that's bollocks.

An away defeat today would mean us being on the same points as the current champions after 18 games, a side that beat us in our only meeting this season.

What we can say with confidence is that we're on the right track and improving from last season, we're back in the "top 3".
 
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Treble

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This is obviously one place lower than we want to be, but for the first time since sir Alex left we can say with confidence that we are a better team than Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham. Okay, debate can be welcomed regarding this but under moyes, two years under lvg and last year under Jose we couldn't have made that claim with a straight face.

It's been great progress. I've been thinking about it in the last week and it's obvious to me, that city's form is making us all feel a lot worse about things and makes us feel further away than ever, despite the fact this is the best we've been in 5 years.

There's no way City will ever replicate a season like this. Not a chance. Had we finished a close second to city or Chelsea in a tight race this season I think many would be glad to be up there. City's runaway season is altering reality for us.

For me making sure we just focus on us this season, keep getting good results, hopefully a cup or miracle run in Europe and keep Jose motivated and ready for the challenge.

Overall with all the doom and gloom, we are in a position that seemed an impossibility at many times in recent years. One more step to make
Jose has improved the team. It is doing much better this season than in any other season after Fergie left.

But there isn't much between United and Chelsea. I wouldn't say that there is enough evidence to the contrary. Chelsea suffered from beig in a much more difficult CL group than United. And completely outplayed us at SB.

And City...will be stronger next season. Not necessarily in terms of winning runs and points but in terms of having more depth to their squad after replacing Kompany, Toure, having Mendy back and the younger players developing further. Unlike Jose, Guardiola has been at his best in his third year at Barca and Bayern.

Jose in his third season... Pray that he will be at his best too.
 

Dobbs

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That's what I felt once but seeing the money used by moyes then van gaal take us nowhere it was seeming like a long long way back.


We finished 6th last year remember folks, and it's where we deserved
Well LvG was a disaster in the transfer market that's why.

If you give any manager with a decent eye for talent a boat load of cash he'll get a team near the top. So it's no surprise to me.

The real skill is the next bit. Winning trophies when up against teams with similar or even greater resources.
 

harms

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We're not undoubtedly better than Chelsea at the moment. We've lost our game against them and we only have potential 3 points lead (if we win today's game). Nor are we significantly better than Spurs.

City
United, Chelsea, Spurs
others
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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If you ain't 1st, you're last.

Obviously, being 2nd is better than 6th-7th etc,.

While I'm happy with our season so far, it's all about being 1st. I don't know if we're clearly the 2nd best team either. Think Chelsea and us are fairly close.
 
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Nor are we significantly better than Spurs.
We are, in fact I think Arsenal and Liverpool have a claim to now be on the same level as Spurs.

Spurs are currently the 7th placed team in the league and have lost to United, Chelsea, Arsenal & City already this season.

Based on this season it's:

City
United | Chelsea
Liverpool | Arsenal | Spurs
 

Litch

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Maybe it's me but my feelings are exactly the same going to West Brom as previous years. I'm honestly not confident of the win. I'm again looking at a pretty average utd team that's second to a bunch of average teams below it. Does anyone believe this city team was better than that Arsenal team with Henry, Berkamp, Pires, Vieira, Petit, Campbell, Adams, Seaman, Overmars....? Well guise what, we were even better than them!!!! This is how far we have fallen. Couldn't give a flying feck about 2nd as all it really amounts to is being in a competition that we're never going to win anyway....
 

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Are we really celebrating the fact we think we’re the 2nd best team in England?

Wow.
Looking at the table I don't see York City anywhere in the premier league. So who is this we you're on about?

Surprised people aren't happy about being second, I could understand the moaning when we weren't top 4, but it's just the same with second. City are possibly the best team in Europe on current form, let's see how they perform over an entire season before throwing in the towel.
 

SER19

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That's not what you said in the OP though, you claimed that we can confidently say we're the second best team in the league, and well, that's bollocks.

An away defeat today would mean us being on the same points as the current champions after 18 games, a side that beat us in our only meeting this season.

What we can say with confidence is that we're on the right track and improving from last season, we're back in the "top 3".
I did though, I said debate can be welcomed.

But if we made the same comment last year it would have been without any confidence at all, in fact we'd have been laughed out of the conversation.
 

noodlehair

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City are taking advantage of how far the quality has dropped in the PL really.

We have made a lot of progress and I'm happy with that, but the idea os to be able to compete with the best in the world, and City are just showing how far there is still to go, as we don't even know if they can do that yet.

I think what it brings into focus more than anything is just how much damage Moyes and LVG did. They managed to make us much worse than a bunch of teams who are themselves nowhere near the level we would be aiming to be at.

The important thing is that at the moment we're going in the right direction. We have some exciting young players going forwards who are most likely to improve. I'm fine with it being a work in progress when you can see that there is actually progress.
 

Burrow

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This is the thing tho. We're literally the 2nd best team in the country, and under any other circumstances we would be pretty happy with our current situation if not for an unprecedented City-side. Our fanbase is turning out to be more and more negative for each passing year since the Fergie-years, and I really cannot understand how so many posters on here are looking for negatives no matter the situation. We are not where we used to be during the successful years of Fergie, and we need to realise that we need some patience in what seems to be a more settled team for a long time.

We're the 2nd best team in the country, we're still in the CL, we're still in the cups and we've won more trophies during our 'bad' years than many of our rivals. There are literally 18 other teams who should be complaining, or less satisfied than us, at the moment yet we're looking to turn every positive thing about this club into something to complain about because that's just how the majority of our vocal posters prefer to do things these days.
 

SER19

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This is the thing tho. We're literally the 2nd best team in the country, and under any other circumstances we would be pretty happy with our current situation if not for an unprecedented City-side. Our fanbase is turning out to be more and more negative for each passing year since the Fergie-years, and I really cannot understand how so many posters on here are looking for negatives no matter the situation. We are not where we used to be during the successful years of Fergie, and we need to realise that we need some patience in what seems to be a more settled team for a long time.

We're the 2nd best team in the country, we're still in the CL, we're still in the cups and we've won more trophies during our 'bad' years than many of our rivals. There are literally 18 other teams who should be complaining, or less satisfied than us, at the moment yet we're looking to turn every positive thing about this club into something to complain about because that's just how the majority of our vocal posters prefer to do things these days.
Yep. Four years of moaning about how far back we are and how even Tottenham have way surpassed us. Seems it's either win the title or nothing. Not how the world works from where we were under moyes and van gaal
 

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It's not for certain that we're the 2nd best team, but at least we're in the conversation

Right now it's hard to see us being number one any time soon, but strange things have happened
 

M Bison

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Looking at the table I don't see York City anywhere in the premier league. So who is this we you're on about?

Surprised people aren't happy about being second, I could understand the moaning when we weren't top 4, but it's just the same with second. City are possibly the best team in Europe on current form, let's see how they perform over an entire season before throwing in the towel.
:lol::lol: How petty of you!

Pleased to be second but this thread is embarrassing. Especially because we’ve got a tricky game today and are currently level on points with Chelsea so things could change quickly.
 

Paul778

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I look at the performances we've put in over the last few months and I just can't help but feel underwhelmed. Second best team in the league is a stretch. I think we are 1-2 places above what our performances deserve.

I see most 'small' teams playing with freedom and pace when they play us and many of our games we've just parked the bus and nicked a goal on the break. Even in our 4 goal wins we've looked shaky in the first half. I look at our attacking third and see no real pace of thought. LVG be damned - you pushed this style on us.

My hopes for this season will be set in stone at the end of January when I see if/when Jose brings anyone in to fix this stuff, or is he effectively saying 'that'll do for this season - we'll start again in August'
 

Water Melon

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We are not the second best team in England yet. Let's see where we are once the league is over. I can see us staying in top 4, but not sure of the 2nd place yet. We are a team in transition, but so are everyone else. City's core are younger than ours, City are ready to spend more than us and they have an identity. Those who believe that we will catch City next season, are in for a surprise. There is more chance of Pep staying longer with them, than Mou with us. We need to improve physically, tactically and Jose needs to get the best out of his players.
 

Di Maria's angel

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Maybe it's me but my feelings are exactly the same going to West Brom as previous years. I'm honestly not confident of the win. I'm again looking at a pretty average utd team that's second to a bunch of average teams below it. Does anyone believe this city team was better than that Arsenal team with Henry, Berkamp, Pires, Vieira, Petit, Campbell, Adams, Seaman, Overmars....? Well guise what, we were even better than them!!!! This is how far we have fallen. Couldn't give a flying feck about 2nd as all it really amounts to is being in a competition that we're never going to win anyway....
We've won 19 of our 26 games in all competitions, this season. If that doesn't inspire confidence, then I'm not sure what can.
 

Litch

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Eh what? I think we are average team, with a load of average below us. My idea is teams are suppose to be progressive, be better than previous teams and keep raising the bar. We have either stagnated or gone backwards at times. Take Pogba out this team, are we really that much better than last year or are the others below us worst than last year?
 

SER19

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The title would suggest so, strange thread to create to be honest :confused:
:lol: "were the second best team in England" suggests celebration to you?! Must be non stop celebrations in your house.

Ya it probably is strange to create a thread about the reality of our position rather than another about city or how poor we are
 

Revan

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There is no way that we can say that we are better than Chelsea. We have the same number of points, they have defeated us this season, and more importantly, they are the current champions while we finished sixth last season. We have shown similar form this season, but we are a more unknown than them, and IMO, there is more chance of us failing apart than them.

Also, the other claim that City is not going to be as good next season is as bollocks as Pep will get find in EPL. At the contrary, they will replace some of the old players (Kompany, Toure) with brand new signings, Mendy will return and players would have had an another season of experience under Pep's style. Which will make them better. Until Aguero and especially Silva decline, they will be very very good, and even then, they already have Jesus and De Bruyne.
 

Di Maria's angel

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We are not the second best team in England yet. Let's see where we are once the league is over. I can see us staying in top 4, but not sure of the 2nd place yet. We are a team in transition, but so are everyone else. City's core are younger than ours, City are ready to spend more than us and they have an identity. Those who believe that we will catch City next season, are in for a surprise. There is more chance of Pep staying longer with them, than Mou with us. We need to improve physically, tactically and Jose needs to get the best out of his players.
Yes, we are.

How many other teams are in transition? How many teams have had three managers in the last four years?

City's core is younger? This is spouting rubbish for the sake of it.
 

Toad

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Unfortunately this is the poor mentality that gets clubs in trouble, second is nothing to be proud of, second is losing.
 

SER19

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Unfortunately this is the poor mentality that gets clubs in trouble, second is nothing to be proud of, second is losing.
Stop reading what you want. Nobody is "proud". You can recognise progress without saying it's enough. Would some people prefer we make a rule that we can complain only all the way from moyes last game until we win the league again. Lazy response

The poor mentality is the ones hammering our team at ever turn while worshipping city
 

Water Melon

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Yes, we are.

How many other teams are in transition? How many teams have had three managers in the last four years?

City's core is younger? This is spouting rubbish for the sake of it.
All the teams are in transition. City are, Chelsea are. Now give me the core of players Utd vs City, and see who is talking bollocks.
 

Adisa

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We could easily be third next week.
Saying we are the second best team is a bit premature.
 

ivaldo

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Is this the same as people saying that no way in hell Pep would be able to come here and dominate like he did at Bayern and Barca?

You know...PL is so much tougher...no easy games...
He proved them wrong, and all it took him was half a billion pounds.