Our tough start to the season and how it hides our good progress

OleBoiii

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Because of the short pre-season, both City and us are probably the teams that had the physically toughest start compared to the other teams in the league. This had a pretty obvious effect on both teams:

PPG = points per game

The first 6 games:
United: 1.16 PPG
City: 1.83 PPG

The following 24/25 games:
United: 2.25 PGG
City: 2.52 PPG

_______________________________________________________

City went from 'barely top 4' form to 'potential record breakers'. We went from 'lower table irrelevance' to 'title winning form'. Yes, that's how good we've been since the we became match fit and slowly started to gel. 2.25 PPG is almost 86 points if the form is spread over 38 games. This is not gonna happen now even if we win all of our remaining games, but it shows us just how good we've actually been.

The final score may be in the mid 70's, but our form after the first tough weeks tells a very different story. Is it unfair to "exclude" the first 6 games? Maybe, but this season has been pretty unique so I don't think it's outrageous to bring it up.

The real headline is unfortunately how disgustingly good City have been and how the bar for winning the PL has been raised in terms of points per game. 2.25 PPG would usually have been enough to win it in the Fergie era, but Pep(and partly Klopp) has made breaking 90 points by a comfortable margin the new norm. That is why we can't be complacent in the transfer market, even though things are looking much better now.
 

cyberman

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Yep, i actually think the 2 Manchester clubs have dominated this league more than people realise.
Look at that start for us, a third of our goals conceded are from those first 3 games.
 

rron10

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Yes I agree we have progressed this season but unfortunately we are absolutely not in "title winning form".
In order to achieve that we have to finish above 85-90 points just to hope we stand a chance, depending on the other teams.
Like you said nowadays the bar is so high that you can finish second with 97 points which a decade ago would have been pure madness.
 
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Hopefully the players will learn from it.

City are the only team in this league that's better than us. Unfortunately they have a great squad, coach and unlimited money.

United need to heavily back Ole in the next window. This group can't go the next step without investment in 3 top class players.
 

RedDevilzFox

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I love the pre-season logic as if its different for other teams. Bottom line is, City are performing their normal level with a coach who knows exactly what he wants, we are somehow performing well (without playing like it). And the rest have dropped levels (Liverpool for sure but maybe it was due, who can keep up those levels?).

City have a good squad but I disagree with those that say they have any special talent. Our squad is also very good but most of the time its like watching casual footballers play football, without any pattern, system or organization. Either that or hit on the break strategy (not sure you can even call that a strategy).

There is nothing that I've seen this season I would classify "good progress". Still getting bounced from QF/SF like clockwork in cup tournaments. Sorry, 2nd spot doesn't hide the fact we play clueless football a large majority of the time. There have been games we've clicked, but those were few and far between.
 
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big rons sovereign

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Thought we'd struggle massively this season, especially after the clownshow provided by bollockhead and his pal from uni.
So i wasn't really surprised that we were awful early on.
What is surprising is how well we've managed to do, and aside from a couple of easily avoidable clangers things would be even better.

Unfortunately, it's all to do with how shit everybody else has been and nothing to do with deservedly being where we are.
Or summat
 

DWelbz19

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I love the pre-season logic as if its different for other teams.
Well... yeah, it was? Because of us going quite far into Europe last season, we literally had much less of a pre-season than everyone else in the league bar City.
 

RedDevilzFox

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Well... yeah, it was? Because of us going quite far into Europe last season, we literally had much less of a pre-season than everyone else in the league bar City.
Ah, I forgot about that. We should probably avoid competing in Europe. This really goes to show how far the mighty have fallen, now we are moaning about going deep in europe and not having those extra couple of weeks of pre-season. Never mind we have a budget that trumps 80-90% of the teams in the league and a deep squad to boot.

Is there another thing more overhyped than the logic "full pre-season cures all ailments"?

I can't reply to the post below due to limit. But how is that different for everyone else?
 

bsCallout

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Ah, I forgot about that. We should probably avoid competing in Europe. This really goes to show how far the mighty have fallen, now we are moaning about going deep in europe and not having those extra couple of weeks of pre-season. Never mind we have a budget that trumps 80-90% of the teams in the league and a deep squad to boot.

Is there another thing more overhyped than the logic "full pre-season cures all ailments"?

You realise the pre-seasons were completely messed up because of Covid? In a normal season our players still get plenty of rest after Europe and a proper pre-season.
 

VP89

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Loosely related, but does anyone know whether the pre-season clubs get after Euros will normalize things? It's a late August start to the Premier League right? So a lot of players in the Euros have to start of July, maybe a couple weeks break, then back in Pre-season for a month or so.
 

big rons sovereign

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Ah, I forgot about that. We should probably avoid competing in Europe. This really goes to show how far the mighty have fallen, now we are moaning about going deep in europe and not having those extra couple of weeks of pre-season. Never mind we have a budget that trumps 80-90% of the teams in the league and a deep squad to boot.

Is there another thing more overhyped than the logic "full pre-season cures all ailments"?

I can't reply to the post below due to limit. But how is that different for everyone else?
:rolleyes: endless negativity in every post.
Is there something I'm missing?
I just can't get my head around it.
 

DWelbz19

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I can't reply to the post below due to limit. But how is that different for everyone else?
I’m not sure if you actually understand, or you’re just ranting for the sake of it. Our last game vs Sevilla was on the 16th of August 2020. The players were given two weeks of rest. Our first Premier League game was on the 19th of September. We played one preseason game against Aston Villa on the 12th of September. That was all the fitness preparation we had for the season.

... Do you still not see how this affected our start to the season?

Just for comparison sake, Liverpool finished their last game of the season on the 26th of July and had 5 preseason matches.

I’ve not said anything about our budget or squad depth. I’m simply responding to the rather silly retort that not having a preseason didn’t massively impact our start to the season.
 

OleBoiii

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I’m not sure if you actually understand, or you’re just ranting for the sake of it. Our last game vs Sevilla was on the 16th of August 2020. The players were given two weeks of rest. Our first Premier League game was on the 19th of September. We played one preseason game against Aston Villa on the 12th of September. That was all the fitness preparation we had for the season.

... Do you still not see how this affected our start to the season?

Just for comparison sake, Liverpool finished their last game of the season on the 26th of July and had 5 preseason matches.
Thanks!

I took it for granted that people knew this, but it seems like I should have included it in my topic :p
 

charlenefan

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We've had two pretty good seasons under Ole now, last season doing trebles over the likes of City and Chelsea and now this one looking like the first time post Fergie we'll of finished in the top 4 two years in a row hopefully matching our best league position post Fergie as well

That being said I'm worried about next season before this one has even finished, I'm worried about the transfer window and us failing to improve the XI for a 2nd summer in a row but I'm also worried about the situations now with the likes of Pogba and DDG (no club can afford either and unless the former signs a new deal which he hasn't even been offered yet then he leaves us on a free for the 2nd time in his career)
You'd have to expect Liverpool to be better, City should be there or thereabouts and Chelsea might click as well. Could be a test too far for this squad
 

hungrywing

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This is a pretty interesting thing to think about. On the one hand, the table/points total never lies. But on the other-

The margins are very fine. Even one prime starter last summer and who knows where we could have ended up
If we'd gotten in a good signing that turned even three of our draws into wins, we're looking at the points total OP and a lot of the 'hey we're actually not that bad' crowd have been arguing.
 

OleBoiii

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I'm worried about the transfer window and us failing to improve the XI for a 2nd summer in a row
If that happens, then it will be conclusive evidence that the club only cares about getting CL football. The club will have failed its coach in 3 of the last 4 summers then. The only decent summer was the one after we failed to get CL football.
 

RashyForPM

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It’s all ifs, buts and maybes in this Covid affected season. Pool and Leicester won’t have a persistent injury crisis next season, Chelsea no longer have an incompetent manager and have a winner now and City had as affected a pre season as us. Without that, they might have broken 100 points.

At the same time, our record since November has been excellent. It’s impossible to argue against 1 PL defeat. Simply impossible. It’s not just the results, but we have generally played entertaining football too. Watching Pogba, Rashford, Bruno and Greenwood in full flow is better than anything we’ve seen since RvP’s explosive season under Fergie in 2012-13. I suppose that’s down to Ole knowing the ethos of the club and adapting to United’s style of football like Busby and Fergie did, and LvG, Moyes and Mourinho didn’t.

All I know is that two summer additions, Sancho and a real top defensive player (CB or DM), preferably one of Ndidi or Kounde, and I’ll be hyping myself up for a title charge next season :drool:
 

always_hoping

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We've had two pretty good seasons under Ole now, last season doing trebles over the likes of City and Chelsea and now this one looking like the first time post Fergie we'll of finished in the top 4 two years in a row hopefully matching our best league position post Fergie as well

That being said I'm worried about next season before this one has even finished, I'm worried about the transfer window and us failing to improve the XI for a 2nd summer in a row but I'm also worried about the situations now with the likes of Pogba and DDG (no club can afford either and unless the former signs a new deal which he hasn't even been offered yet then he leaves us on a free for the 2nd time in his career)
You'd have to expect Liverpool to be better, City should be there or thereabouts and Chelsea might click as well. Could be a test too far for this squad
Will be plenty worried if the required transfer business isn't done this summer. Hard to trust Woodward and his chief negotiator Matt Judge doing what is required.

Pogba IMO should not be let go until a like for like replacement is brought in. DeGea a great servant but his best days in the United shirt are behind him, that said I'm not fully convinced on Henderson yet. Can he reach the peak DeGea levels with more game time?
 

Ali Dia

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This is a pretty interesting thing to think about. On the one hand, the table/points total never lies. But on the other-



If we'd gotten in a good signing that turned even three of our draws into wins, we're looking at the points total OP and a lot of the 'hey we're actually not that bad' crowd have been arguing.
you only have to look at the mileage we are getting out of the likes of James Matic and Cavani to realise how short on really cutting edge quality we still are. Hopefully we can cut down on the waste and the stopgaps and get a bit more luck with another signing or two and you never know. The only thing is you're talking a very small pool of players who could come in here and boss it from the off though. Sancho was such a no brainier as far as I’m concerned.
 

MadDogg

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Sound like an Arsenal supporter
Why?

This season is a unique situation, with the extra small break having an obvious impact on the early season form of all teams in that situation. We had the equal smallest break out of all the teams in Europe.

Man Utd - 34 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Sevilla - 34 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Wolves - 34 day break (3 wins in their first 6)
Man City - 36 day break (3 wins in their first 8)
Inter Milan - 36 days (3 wins in their first 7)
Chelsea - 37 day break (2 wins in their first 6)

Strangely, Wolves had the best starting record of all the teams that hardly had a break. The other five all started slowly before improving significantly, including Man City and Inter running away with their respective leagues. The other PL teams had an extra two week break, other than Arsenal which was only one week extra. Two weeks is a huge benefit in this situation, which for example would allow the players to have an extra week of rest and then fit an extra two pre-season friendlies in. And of course the teams that ourselves and City played had had an extra PL game to get further match-fitness.

Technically Bayern, Leipzig, PSG and Lyon had a smaller break between the end of European tournaments and the beginning of their 20/21 season, but they had a decent break (over a month for the Germans and over three months for the French) between the end of their 19/20 league season and the restart of the CL.
 

Classical Mechanic

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Remember when I started this thread to a load of hysteria

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/best-to-write-yesterday’s-game-off-as-irrelevant.457551/

Amazing how people couldn't see the blatantly obvious or don't even understand how important being 100% fit at the sharp end of elite sport is. There seemed to be some sort of collective madness going on, perhaps because of Covid but I think some people were just happy to take it as evidence to pursue various agendas against players & manager etc.
 

Leftback99

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Remember when I started this thread to a load of hysteria

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/best-to-write-yesterday’s-game-off-as-irrelevant.457551/

Amazing how people couldn't see the blatantly obvious or don't even understand how important being 100% fit at the sharp end of elite sport is. There seemed to be some sort of collective madness going on, perhaps because of Covid but I think some people were just happy to take it as evidence to pursue various agendas against players & manager etc.
Yeah it was obvious but no surprise at the usual suspects' posts in that thread.
 

ROFLUTION

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Why?

This season is a unique situation, with the extra small break having an obvious impact on the early season form of all teams in that situation. We had the equal smallest break out of all the teams in Europe.

Man Utd - 34 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Sevilla - 34 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Wolves - 34 day break (3 wins in their first 6)
Man City - 36 day break (3 wins in their first 8)
Inter Milan - 36 days (3 wins in their first 7)
Chelsea - 37 day break (2 wins in their first 6)

Strangely, Wolves had the best starting record of all the teams that hardly had a break. The other five all started slowly before improving significantly, including Man City and Inter running away with their respective leagues. The other PL teams had an extra two week break, other than Arsenal which was only one week extra. Two weeks is a huge benefit in this situation, which for example would allow the players to have an extra week of rest and then fit an extra two pre-season friendlies in. And of course the teams that ourselves and City played had had an extra PL game to get further match-fitness.

Technically Bayern, Leipzig, PSG and Lyon had a smaller break between the end of European tournaments and the beginning of their 20/21 season, but they had a decent break (over a month for the Germans and over three months for the French) between the end of their 19/20 league season and the restart of the CL.
If memory serves correctly, Wolves were quite lucky in those games too.

Anyways, I find it weird that there's always an excuse for why we don't end up where we want. Couldn't Ole just have given players earlier off instead of using key players in Europa League during the summer? We were already in the CL, so a due rest is on Ole I believe.

I'm mostly pissed about going out of CL early btw. 2nd in the league is quite good.
 

MadDogg

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Anyways, I find it weird that there's always an excuse for why we don't end up where we want. Couldn't Ole just have given players earlier off instead of using key players in Europa League during the summer? We were already in the CL, so a due rest is on Ole I believe.
He could have yes. I know there were a few people that wanted that.

Realistically though it's a good tournament that we were amongst the favourites for. Putting out a second string squad and giving the main players a rest would have caused a lot more anger and disgust throughout the fanbase, and we'd still be saying that it potentially cost us his first title.
 

lost7

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Really good thread. Yes we've definitely made progress this season, but I would still like us to become better at dominating games. Too many times this season we've won games that maybe we didn't totally deserve to win, which is fine but perhaps is not sustainable in the future.

I still think a lot of our progress is just down to Bruno being just the perfect player for us (so fair play to Ole for going for him). This is especially telling if you look at our post lockdown form last season, wherre we were playing our best football in ages. If we could go back to that type of attacking football, I would honestly be stoked
 

Bobcat

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Remember when I started this thread to a load of hysteria

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/best-to-write-yesterday’s-game-off-as-irrelevant.457551/

Amazing how people couldn't see the blatantly obvious or don't even understand how important being 100% fit at the sharp end of elite sport is. There seemed to be some sort of collective madness going on, perhaps because of Covid but I think some people were just happy to take it as evidence to pursue various agendas against players & manager etc.
Cant let common sense come in the way of people having a meltdown or spin their agenda driven narrative

Honestly, it feels pretty jarring to go to a United forum, and have Unitedfans bend over backwards to defend a Liverpool manager (VVD injury etc) but any outside factors affecting us and its just "excuses" and suddenly your in some kind of cult
 

OleBoiii

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Man Utd - 34 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Sevilla - 34 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Wolves - 34 day break (3 wins in their first 6)
Man City - 36 day break (3 wins in their first 8)
Inter Milan - 36 days (3 wins in their first 7)
Chelsea - 37 day break (2 wins in their first 6)
Cheers! I love it when posters strengthen my topic with even better data :D

Remember when I started this thread to a load of hysteria

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/best-to-write-yesterday’s-game-off-as-irrelevant.457551/

Amazing how people couldn't see the blatantly obvious or don't even understand how important being 100% fit at the sharp end of elite sport is. There seemed to be some sort of collective madness going on, perhaps because of Covid but I think some people were just happy to take it as evidence to pursue various agendas against players & manager etc.
Considering how toxic things were back then, it took some balls to make that thread :lol:

Cant let common sense come in the way of people having a meltdown or spin their agenda driven narrative

Honestly, it feels pretty jarring to go to a United forum, and have United fans bend over backwards to defend a Liverpool manager (VVD injury etc) but any outside factors affecting us and its just "excuses" and suddenly your in some kind of cult
Jarring to say the least!
 

ManchesterYoda

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I have set my own target for us this season and if we achieve it I'll consider it a good season.
Win the Europa League and finish 2nd with 80 points or more, score 80 goals or more and concede less than 40 goals.
Can we win finish with a W6 D2 L0? I think we are definitely capable of doing so as we have already done better than that this season.
SAF never finished outside the top 3 once we finished 2nd to Leeds and that will always be the minimum standard for us in my eyes.
Top 4 means nothing to me. 4th is failure in every sport. 3rd or better and a trophy each and every season is what we should always demand.
 

rotherham_red

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Because of the short pre-season, both City and us are probably the teams that had the physically toughest start compared to the other teams in the league. This had a pretty obvious effect on both teams:

PPG = points per game

The first 6 games:
United: 1.16 PPG
City: 1.83 PPG

The following 24/25 games:
United: 2.25 PGG
City: 2.52 PPG

_______________________________________________________

City went from 'barely top 4' form to 'potential record breakers'. We went from 'lower table irrelevance' to 'title winning form'. Yes, that's how good we've been since the we became match fit and slowly started to gel. 2.25 PPG is almost 86 points if the form is spread over 38 games. This is not gonna happen now even if we win all of our remaining games, but it shows us just how good we've actually been.

The final score may be in the mid 70's, but our form after the first tough weeks tells a very different story. Is it unfair to "exclude" the first 6 games? Maybe, but this season has been pretty unique so I don't think it's outrageous to bring it up.

The real headline is unfortunately how disgustingly good City have been and how the bar for winning the PL has been raised in terms of points per game. 2.25 PPG would usually have been enough to win it in the Fergie era, but Pep(and partly Klopp) has made breaking 90 points by a comfortable margin the new norm. That is why we can't be complacent in the transfer market, even though things are looking much better now.
While I fully agree, I'd actually go further and say what we're currently seeing (the patchy displays, etc) is the effects of playing every three days with barely a month's break in all that time, which when you consider that this is still predominantly the same set of players Ole had used when he first came in to the job back in 2019, is pretty damn good.

Get the players rested after the Euros and bring in some proper quality in to the first team and lets see what we and Ole are made of in the long-term.
 

Red_Aaron

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That being said I'm worried about next season before this one has even finished, I'm worried about the transfer window and us failing to improve the XI for a 2nd summer in a row but I'm also worried about the situations now with the likes of Pogba and DDG (no club can afford either and unless the former signs a new deal which he hasn't even been offered yet then he leaves us on a free for the 2nd time in his career)
You'd have to expect Liverpool to be better, City should be there or thereabouts and Chelsea might click as well. Could be a test too far for this squad
A good transfer window could really fire us into contention next year however my worry at this point is the covid influence spreading into the summer and the euros means the start of next season will likely be under similar circumstances. I can see very little in the way of preseason again and no doubt all our key players will feature in the latter stages of the tournament. It'll be another slow start imo which will lead to the predictable hand wringing on here

Our progress under Ole couldn't be clearer imo, I really hope we win the EL, not because I particularly rate the competition but because a trophy under his belt might actually shut a few of the naysayers up for 5 minutes
 

acnumber9

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I love the pre-season logic as if its different for other teams.
It actually was different for everybody other than City, United and Wolves. None of them had a pre season and all three had a terrible start.
 

ROFLUTION

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He could have yes. I know there were a few people that wanted that.

Realistically though it's a good tournament that we were amongst the favourites for. Putting out a second string squad and giving the main players a rest would have caused a lot more anger and disgust throughout the fanbase, and we'd still be saying that it potentially cost us his first title.
I dont know, it was clear as day for most of our fanbase that it would have an effect on next season. For me, he showed he was Ole the pleaser, not the pragmatist in that situation
 

RUCK4444

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Agree with the OP. In a nutshell that provides a basic overview of how we are clearly progressing under Ole and why some, like myself, find it more than a tad frustrating when many claim we aren’t, or worse claim we are going backwards.

I’ve said from the start of this season that initial period of being woefully unfit and unprepared through the lack of a proper pre-season was an absolute killer for us.

We did well to bounce back from that and not totally fold but then at the same time where I can appreciate the frustration is that we’ve struggled to cement that 1st position and dropped behind City, which in my opinion is a reflection of the strength of their squad.

Couple this with what was a poor transfer window, one where we made a complete mess of putting all our eggs into the Sancho basket and failed to properly strengthen anything other than our bench (leaving the holes in the starting 11 unresolved.)
 

acnumber9

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One thing I would say is that we’re having a remarkably similar season to when we finished second under Mourinho. Performances largely poor, knocked out of the Champions League early and nowhere near the champions. And this is with Bruno. We need to not repeat the same mistake of not strengthening our first eleven. What are the odds we won’t?
 

Ludens the Red

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The problem we have is, whilst this can all be seen as very valid points. It is sort of negated by the fact we as a fanbase seem to spin this rest/lack of fitness/pre season theory whenever we’re doing badly to whatever fits. (Not accusing you directly of doing this)

We started the 2019/2020 season atrociously with plenty of rest. Back then it was excused as being early in the season and that we needed time to settle.

This is where my issue always lies with this stuff. The goal posts move too much. We’re a team constantly excused for performing badly when either playing too much or not playing enough. Getting too much rest, not being rested enough.
It’s probably a reflection of our divided fanbase, which has differing opinions on everything.

But for those of us who just think this team in general are up and down with performances and occasionally have a bad run of results. These threads just look like excuses. To me our start looked like us being us. We’ve been starting games badly all season. We started badly last season. Just seems like a pattern.

Because of the short pre-season, both City and us are probably the teams that had the physically toughest start compared to the other teams in the league. This had a pretty obvious effect on both teams:

PPG = points per game

The first 6 games:
United: 1.16 PPG
City: 1.83 PPG

The following 24/25 games:
United: 2.25 PGG
City: 2.52 PPG

_______________________________________________________

City went from 'barely top 4' form to 'potential record breakers'. We went from 'lower table irrelevance' to 'title winning form'. Yes, that's how good we've been since the we became match fit and slowly started to gel. 2.25 PPG is almost 86 points if the form is spread over 38 games. This is not gonna happen now even if we win all of our remaining games, but it shows us just how good we've actually been.

The final score may be in the mid 70's, but our form after the first tough weeks tells a very different story. Is it unfair to "exclude" the first 6 games? Maybe, but this season has been pretty unique so I don't think it's outrageous to bring it up.

The real headline is unfortunately how disgustingly good City have been and how the bar for winning the PL has been raised in terms of points per game. 2.25 PPG would usually have been enough to win it in the Fergie era, but Pep(and partly Klopp) has made breaking 90 points by a comfortable margin the new norm. That is why we can't be complacent in the transfer market, even though things are looking much better now.
 

Crashoutcassius

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Location
playa del carmen
I love the pre-season logic as if its different for other teams. Bottom line is, City are performing their normal level with a coach who knows exactly what he wants, we are somehow performing well (without playing like it). And the rest have dropped levels (Liverpool for sure but maybe it was due, who can keep up those levels?).

City have a good squad but I disagree with those that say they have any special talent. Our squad is also very good but most of the time its like watching casual footballers play football, without any pattern, system or organization. Either that or hit on the break strategy (not sure you can even call that a strategy).

There is nothing that I've seen this season I would classify "good progress". Still getting bounced from QF/SF like clockwork in cup tournaments. Sorry, 2nd spot doesn't hide the fact we play clueless football a large majority of the time. There have been games we've clicked, but those were few and far between.
Our pre season was different from other teams. We had the least rest and have played the most games ...