I do regard City as established but there is obviously plenty of room for development. We still lack global appeal on the scale of teams like United and Madrid and it will take decades to achieve that. There are signs it is changing though, for instance Dybala said before he signed for Juventus that City were on of his dream teams. A Belgian youth player said something similar a few months ago. Ok, there is clearly a link in that we have Argentinian and Belgian players, but it's a sign that the younger generation are growing up with City as a top side who they want to play for alongside the other top teams.
As for your claim about the attendance it has no grounding in reality. Our attendance is higher than last season, that's indisputable, so how have fans turned their back on the club? And I was at the Watford game which was a sell-out and there were very few empty seats, only a few hundred which you will always get. Bournemouth as well was the record attendance until the Leicester game and was definitely packed, so those are two games at home to lesser sides which have seen a full Etihad this season.
Re "official" attendance figures and what the world and his dog can see with their own eyes.
Attendance v Watford = 53,218
Attendance v WBA = 53,920
You say Watford was packed? Less than attending yesterday apparently. What's the capacity 55k? No way was that ground 98% full.
City are clearly struggling to get a full house on a regular basis and for a team with designs of global domination many would say that, 8 years in, that doesn't bode well. What chance has a team of global appeal if even the man down the road isn't arsed? The Guardiola project will be interesting. Right now City have stalled and he's got a job on to take them up a level ang get a decent crowd in .
As with United large chunks of hard core support have jacked it in - cue empty seats and no atmosphere at the Etihad whilst United still have enough day trippers. That will change too if we don't get playing decent football pretty smartly.
