Not to bring a downer but they'll get 95 points again. Looking at Peps past teams, they tend to maintain the level and destroy league campaigns. Someone posted the stats in the past and they hardly dipped. If they could do it last season, they can do it again. I don't see our managers suddenly turning into einstein. They scored 100+ goals and got 100 pts. That just showed they were in a league of their own and I don't see how that has changed in 3 months (a world cup break). the tactics, coaching, meticulous approach will ensure that they perform in a similar manner as Pep is a lunatic and I can see him drilling the same high standard into the players again. 92-95 points I can see them getting. They'll never win the CL though
Varchester City 18/19 discussion
- Thread starter Bergman
- Start date
I just noticed that City have signed Claudio Gomes on a free transfer from PSG...how? He's supposed to be really highly rated.
he didn't want to sign a pro contract, think we'll still owe them some compo though.
From reports he's looked only ok in the pre season games he played but apparently he was frozen out at PSG since jan for not signing a pro contract. I was surprised at how tiny he was
Don't think you can take anything from what Pep did at Bayern & Barca. It's easy to destroy league campaigns when you are in 1 & 2 team leagues respectively. If it did mean anything he would have destroyed the league in his first season at City. He had the best squad & spent a shed load on top. He only got a 3rd place finish & no trophies.
No team will break 90 pts next season. The City season was hugely based on momentum. A crazy amount of lucky breaks, poor officiating & bad luck for the opposition allowed them to keep the run going. They obviously won a few of these games well. Quite a few of these games could easily have gone another way though, stopping the run in it's tracks.
It will be City, Liverpool & Chelsea in a league fight next season. Winner will have points in the high 80's & no more than 6 pts between the winner & runner up.
4 ageing fullbacks meant that 16/17 squad was far from the best in the league.
Poor officiating last season eh? Wheel some off and tell us how that helped us but don't forget the amount of leg breakers missed in 8 or 9 games. Poor officiating....Don't make me laugh.
I've read that Pep has been impressed with him in training. It's early days for him but it just surprised me as I'd heard that he's a really good prospect and you wouldn't expect PSG to lose their best young players.
Barcelona have gotten over 90 points every year since 2010 bar 1. Bayern have won 10 out of 13 titles and 6 in a row. I think this is a reflection of the leagues and teams rather than any pattern to draw from guardiola. Best club team in a generation followed by a straight forward league to win for the last few years.
Barca have beaten his highest points total with two different managers as well.
Ya I feel his success at Barca is overstated I think any of those managers would have achieved the same in that era,
I do think he’ll have city at a high standard again of course, but will be interesting to see him react if under any genuine pressure
What do you mean ‘What?’. They battered you lot twice and should have been three times but for a dodgy sending off. They didn’t have the strength in depth that you lot have which cost them.
Just think of the money Citeh will save now they don’t have to buy Yaya a birthday cake BTW, I predict Yaya will have a stormer against City when the play at the Emptyhad, man of the match performance.
Certainly think it'll be a closer race this year. Last year was exceptional for us (City). Not many will be predicting a similar season.
I think missing out on a back-up midfielder could be a little costly for us. In January we seemed interested in Fred, then changed our minds and decided Jorginho was our man only for him to head to Chelsea. It now appears we'll settle for what we've got.
For me midfield is the most important area on the pitch, whilst Sane/Jesus/Aguero/Sterling is a great strike force, it's not dramatically better than our rivals; however the Fernandinho-Silva-De Bruyne was, for me, far superior to any of our rivals and is what led to our dominance. Now I feel United have added to theirs with Fred, Chelsea with Jorginho, and Liverpool with Keita/Fabinho; I still feel our 3 are the strongest, but Silva/Dinho are getting on and having no back-up outside of Gundogan could be costly in the long run.
Adding Mahrez was good business, for me we only had 2 natural wide men last season, and were "fortunate" that they didn't get any long-term knocks. Now we could cope with that far better. Mendy & Laporte will almost be new signings in defence so feel we're fine there also.
- Chelsea will be a threat, Sarri had Napoli playing great, and Chelsea are restarting their cycle of new manager no CL football and focus on the
league year. Fully expect them to be challenging if they keep Hazard/Kante. Willian/Courtois aren't so important for me.
- Liverpool on paper should be very strong, but sometimes new players who've been great in other countries, well, aren't that great in the PL. Throwing a few together and assuming it will work is always a gamble. If the signings settle quick, then they'll also be a big threat.
- Spurs, well, haven't changed anything and some players seem to want to leave. Imagine another decent but not crazy season.
- Arsenal, who knows, expect improvements, but surely too far off to really challenge.
- United, hardest to predict, all looks a little tits up in pre-season, manager notorious for 3rd season syndrome seems to be heading that route again. Fred's a decent signing, but doesn't feel game changing. For me currently I'd have them 4th favourites behind Chelsea/City/L'pool.
I think missing out on a back-up midfielder could be a little costly for us. In January we seemed interested in Fred, then changed our minds and decided Jorginho was our man only for him to head to Chelsea. It now appears we'll settle for what we've got.
For me midfield is the most important area on the pitch, whilst Sane/Jesus/Aguero/Sterling is a great strike force, it's not dramatically better than our rivals; however the Fernandinho-Silva-De Bruyne was, for me, far superior to any of our rivals and is what led to our dominance. Now I feel United have added to theirs with Fred, Chelsea with Jorginho, and Liverpool with Keita/Fabinho; I still feel our 3 are the strongest, but Silva/Dinho are getting on and having no back-up outside of Gundogan could be costly in the long run.
Adding Mahrez was good business, for me we only had 2 natural wide men last season, and were "fortunate" that they didn't get any long-term knocks. Now we could cope with that far better. Mendy & Laporte will almost be new signings in defence so feel we're fine there also.
- Chelsea will be a threat, Sarri had Napoli playing great, and Chelsea are restarting their cycle of new manager no CL football and focus on the
league year. Fully expect them to be challenging if they keep Hazard/Kante. Willian/Courtois aren't so important for me.
- Liverpool on paper should be very strong, but sometimes new players who've been great in other countries, well, aren't that great in the PL. Throwing a few together and assuming it will work is always a gamble. If the signings settle quick, then they'll also be a big threat.
- Spurs, well, haven't changed anything and some players seem to want to leave. Imagine another decent but not crazy season.
- Arsenal, who knows, expect improvements, but surely too far off to really challenge.
- United, hardest to predict, all looks a little tits up in pre-season, manager notorious for 3rd season syndrome seems to be heading that route again. Fred's a decent signing, but doesn't feel game changing. For me currently I'd have them 4th favourites behind Chelsea/City/L'pool.
They are the money carriers for the ball boys and officials
They finished 25 points behind City, scored 22 goals less, and conceded 11 more, therefore finishing with a -33 goal difference to City. And were losing already prior to the sending off in the game you predict they'd have battered City.
Yes they're the best equipped side to beat City in a head to head match, no doubt. But to state they were playing the best football last season is a little deluded and foolish when you look at the stats.
Do they have the name across the chest so people know who they are?
Well, that escalated quickly.
This was basically my reply too. In no way, at all, did Liverpool player better football than us.
Ha ha, hardly deluded. You finished 15pts behind Chelsea the year before, went our and spent over £200m on a keeper and three defenders so goals against went down from 39 to 27.Plus the luck returned, in off the chest of Raheem at Huddersfield, mid kick late goals 7 minutes into 5 mins of added time. Remember Sparky moaning about that at OT. You played the most consistent footy but not the best .
Miskick late goals 7 minutes into 5 minutes of injury time. A minute was played after the winner. For 3 of the first 5 minutes, Bournemouth had players down or the referee was having to come between a disagreement between Guardiola and Howe.
If you want to look at that match, maybe look at Nathan Ake only getting a yellow card when denying a clear goalscoring in the 1st half. Might it have been a different game then? It's amazing how you only look at the decisions that suit isn't it?
Maybe you are right. And City have won 3 titles since 2012 and have the most money in Europe so perhaps the stars are aligning once more!
Could be a really interesting season if Fernandinho and Silva get niggling injuries because of their ages. Imagine a midfield of Delph-Gundogan-KDB for big parts of the season. 
The first game at Emirates will be really even, hope Arsenal can beat them. They've had a long pre-season with almost all of their players, while City have been without KdB, Silva, Fernandinho, Walker, Mendy, Kompany, Stones, Sterling, Aguero, Jesus and others for most of it, if not all of it.
The first game at Emirates will be really even, hope Arsenal can beat them. They've had a long pre-season with almost all of their players, while City have been without KdB, Silva, Fernandinho, Walker, Mendy, Kompany, Stones, Sterling, Aguero, Jesus and others for most of it, if not all of it.
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Could be a really interesting season if Fernandinho and Silva get niggling injuries because of their ages. Imagine a midfield of Delph-Gundogan-KDB for big parts of the season.
The first game at Emirates will be really interesting, hope Arsenal can beat them. They've had a long pre-season with almost all of their players, while City have been without KdB, Silva, Fernandinho, Walker, Mendy, Kompany, Stones, Sterling, Aguero, Jesus and others for most of it, if not all of it.
we played plenty of games without Silva last season and were fine. Gundogan and Delph played plenty last season and were fine. If both players were out the midfield would probably be something like
Delph or Gundo
B Silva KDB
Which would be fine
You can say it'll be an interesting season for any club if certain players get injuries, imagine Lukaku and Pogba get injured early in the season what then?
Sure, but both of them are 8 years younger and less likely to pick up injuries due to age and fatigue.. A club which only lost points in six games last season will find it hard to keep it going since 2/3 of their midfield is now 32/33. Silva will be 33 in January, and Fernandinho will turn 34 before the league season is over!
age isn't an indicator if you'll get injured or not, even if it was we've plenty of cover.
Since he's been at City Ferna has missed 3 games due to injury, not bad for a 34 year old. Silva missed plenty of games last season and he'll miss plenty this season as Pep stated he'll be playing less anyway.
I mean, if you're going to go down the route of using hypothetical situations to win the argument you could at least have the courtesy to throw in those two completely legal goals we had disallowed at crucial points over the Champions' League games.
Pogba and Lukaku both missed large periods though injury last season btw
You were allowed to play the way you wanted last season. A large amount of your games were glorified training sessions, attack Vs defense. I don't think many fans find this entertaining. You can't blame opposing teams from being defensive minded. They are competing against the worlds most expensively assembled squad. It creates an anomaly in the league though as many teams throw in the towel before the game has even began.
Utter rubbish. What's the excuse with United then because their squad is pretty expensively assembled too? Why weren't teams overly defensive minded against them?
Maybe, just maybe, City were actually pretty good last year?
City were absolutely fantastic last year. Anybody saying otherwise is deluding themselves, plenty of teams tried to have a go but just weren't good enough. Both games against them we tried to go at their throat but were simply outplayed, they were by far the best side we played. Maybe they won't be as good this season, maybe they will be even better .. who knows, but let's not attempt to rewrite history, they walked the league because they deserved to, teams couldn't cope with their ability both on and off the ball, the movement was world class. People kept saying 'if you just press the defence..' but then most of the time they beat the press and pulled you apart. No team is invincible and Liverpool were able to get to them, but even then I think the Champions League ties were heavily influenced by a few incorrect offside decisions, particularly in the second leg where City should have gone in at half time 2-0 up.
If I could 'like' posts on here, you'd have just earned one.
In which case Utd would theoretically have a puncher's chance.
For some reason their CM depth isn't that good...?
Because they lost out on Fred to us, Jorginho to Chelsea and Seri to Fulham.
Jesus had just signed a contract extension to 2023
What's the general City census of Jesus? I actually think he's overrated because of his age. Just like our own Rashford.
Obviously City's style of play suits him to the ground because he's a poacher and City have chances coming out their ears. But his goals have masked some terrible overall performances.
The Liverpool game comes to mind when he had like 6 successful passes all game and 4 of them were from tip off after conceding (have to recheck that stat, will edit later).
Edited above.
CM depth is very good - Silva, KDB, Gundogan, B.Silva and Foden for two spaces. Wouldn't be surprised to see Mahrez in a slightly more advanced central position either.
Defensive midfield is where City are a bit thin on the ground with Fernandinho as the only true DM they have in the squad. Gundogan and Delph are the two primary rotation options as things stand and whilst not ideal, have shown that they can do a job there. Some of Gundogan's best games in a City shirt have been in the number 6 role, against strong teams too (Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal).
Gundogan was originally bought to play in the pivot position, so I imagine Pep thinks he's more than capable of playing there. I don't think we're yet to see him at his best since his injury anyway. I think people forget how truly good he was at Dortmund - one of the best midfielders in the world. Injuries have definitely made an impact, but he was fit the entire season without any issues at all, so hopefully he can kick on.
He is anything but a poacher. His work rate, movement, passing and build up play is top class.
There was a reason why Pep was starting him over Aguero - he wouldn't have done if he was a pure poacher. He offers the team so much more than just goals when he plays.
I'm convinced that people who call him a poacher didn't see him play much for City last season.
This.
Gundogan fully fit week in week out and Mendy instead of delph for a full season is already a massive boost even without Mahrez.
No it isn'tHis work rate and movement is good, his passing and build up play is not 'top class'.
Hmmm there is obviously contrasting opinions. I'll admit I didn't catch many City games last season but he was usually no where near the build up. He presses and does inside the box finishes from what I've seen. Can't say I saw any ''top class' passing or build up from him at the World Cup either.
His work rate and movement is good, his passing and build up play is not 'top class'.
I do recall match day threads when a popular opinion was why would Pep start Jesus over Aguero as Aguero is much more superior.
Maybe I'm not the best to judge as I said above I didn't watch them much but would like to hear more opinions from City fans.