Don't get me wrong, to a large extent, a win is a win, and there are no easy games in the Premier League.
However, I have said all along that what's more important to me this season than results is seeing improvement in our performances and tactical progression, and so far it's been a real mixed bag.
Also, let's not forget that these four wins in the Premier League have come during a period in which we've been beaten 0-3 at home by our nearest rivals and effectively knocked out of two competitions, conceding 7 goals to mediocre sides in the process.
To be fair I think we have a better chance at qualifying from our group than many here, ( 6 points may be enough which would be humiliating but we’d be there)
Our start of the season was horrendous, big game after big game so this is just the fixtures becoming a lot more even. I’m not saying the big games doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t have lost the two against the London teams imo ( who we played away and not s lot of teams at the top of the league many big away games anymore, look it up it’s unreal, City have won about 2 in 18 months and they’re the best team in the world) but it’s evened out to such an extent that the only difference separating us and most above us are the head to head results.
I’m starting to spam the forum a bit with my posts so I’ll just state it here and leave it. There was a period last year at the beginning of the season and mid way in January from Palace and Arsenal scoring late goals to take 5 points off us followed by a harsh red card for Case that led to a draw v Southampton where we said if it wasn’t for those runs we would be in a title race and still ended up on 75 points. Unless we think our front players are never going to go on a run or we don’t bring in a Toney with the Sancho money or maybe sign a defender in January or, at the very least, not improve with Shaw and Martinez back, we will get better. These results are significant because getting better will be from 10 to almost 15 points better off than we should have. The big fixtures are now so heavily loaded towards the end of the season we now have the fixtures that allows us to build that momentum and give us a cushion to fly into those big games. There’s every chance we won’t, I’m not saying we will go to the Etihad and win but a lot of those big games are also at OT and who knows how high well be in the league at that stage. For me, that’s why it’s so important that we pick up these wins when not playing well and not something to be dismissed.
I said our league position in January will fry a lot of heads and I stand by that, you can see in this very thread it’s already happening. We can’t take beating the teams we should beat for granted and we’ve been doing that for 18 months now. Beat the bottom half of the table home and away leaves us with 60 points alone.
