Man City's inevitable Treble

united_99 said:
In 99 top 3 finished on 79/78/75. In 2000 it was 91/73/69.
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As giorno said, not much of a difference other than United and the table looked virtually identical after gameweek 33.

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I don't think there was a significant difference in terms of the quality of the teams behind United. United were just so much better than the rest.
 
Siorac said:
As giorno said, not much of a difference other than United and the table looked virtually identical after gameweek 33.

bvQwiAq.png
WL1rA0c.png

I don't think there was a significant difference in terms of the quality of the teams behind United. United were just so much better than the rest.
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Watching us that season I didn’t feel we were better (not worse either). And actually weaker at the back without Schmeichel. But maybe the zenith was reached the previous season and the following season the team was playing without any pressure and therefore more freely.
 
Marwood said:
Stating the obvious here but I keep seeing Pep called a "monster" or a "genius"

His record in Europe without Messi doesn't scream genius to me. Surely a monster would have a couple more champions leagues at this stage with the resources he's had. Instead of some pretty shambolic exits.

I think its hugely optimistic to think City's dominance will end with Pep. It was already starting to happen before Pep. The only hope is that they appoint an absolute duffer to succeed him but that seems unlikely.
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I don't genuinely think winning in Europe is a rigid measure of a manager's 'genius'. Is Sevilla a dominating team then?. More often than not, the defensive hit and run teams have greater success in UCL and they call it as 'tactics' crap. Its been a while since UCL was won by a dominating team. Lets look at the last few UCLs for example,
Liverpool - Madrid (Liverpool was the better team, until Salah was taken out and Karius happened)
Liverpool - Tottenham (Tottenham was the better team. Liverpool got the penalty, sat and countered)
Bayern - PSG (The COVID era, where Bayern played one-off games instead of double headers to reach the final)
Chelsea - City and Madrid -Liverpool (Same thing. Chelsea and Madrid were poor, but camped and countered the dominating teams). Are any of these winners dominating?

The point is UCL is a great one-off showboating for a club, but definitely not a real measure of great team. They should rename it as a Champions cup instead of League. If anything, it should be reduced to a cup. Real Madrid have been bang average year in and year out, but manage to win the cup. Same with Sevilla, bang average but win the Europa. Its ridiculuous to suggest these are great teams. Take 2005 Milan- Liverpool, just because LIverpool won the final, can we say they are the best team out there. If a team does the double, then yes we can say they were truly dominating (like the old cup winners cup kinda). To keep saying Pep hasn't won the UCL recently doesn't make him any less of a manager than say Tuchel/Klopp/Mou/Ancelotti et.al.

Also, I don't agree that City were dominating before Pep analogy. City were good, but never dominating. Pep has destroyed the league. 90+ points season after season is not normal for any team in any era. Almost all the great managers in current football were stacked in PL (Tuchel, Mou, Klopp, Ancelotti, Conte etc. ) and Pep has still been dominating. I am certain but for Pep, any other CIty manager, both us (under Mourinho) and Pool (under KLopp) would have been in with a shout for atleast few more titles. His impact will be better felt once he leaves. Am certain, it will be status resumed for City, scrapping one or two titles every 10 years.
 
DJ_21 said:
He’s done well so far in sticking to the basics but ye pep does have an habit of messing up once they get so far. It’s either down to Madrid or last hope down to us to stop them winning the treble at least.
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This would be great. We can do the odd games better. We have the squad to hit them on the counter. The problem is our defense should turn up.
 
iamking said:
I don't genuinely think winning in Europe is a rigid measure of a manager's 'genius'. Is Sevilla a dominating team then?. More often than not, the defensive hit and run teams have greater success in UCL and they call it as 'tactics' crap. Its been a while since UCL was won by a dominating team. Lets look at the last few UCLs for example,
Liverpool - Madrid (Liverpool was the better team, until Salah was taken out and Karius happened)
Liverpool - Tottenham (Tottenham was the better team. Liverpool got the penalty, sat and countered)
Bayern - PSG (The COVID era, where Bayern played one-off games instead of double headers to reach the final)
Chelsea - City and Madrid -Liverpool (Same thing. Chelsea and Madrid were poor, but camped and countered the dominating teams). Are any of these winners dominating?

The point is UCL is a great one-off showboating for a club, but definitely not a real measure of great team. They should rename it as a Champions cup instead of League. If anything, it should be reduced to a cup. Real Madrid have been bang average year in and year out, but manage to win the cup. Same with Sevilla, bang average but win the Europa. Its ridiculuous to suggest these are great teams. Take 2005 Milan- Liverpool, just because LIverpool won the final, can we say they are the best team out there. If a team does the double, then yes we can say they were truly dominating (like the old cup winners cup kinda). To keep saying Pep hasn't won the UCL doesn't make him any less of a manager than say Tuchel/Klopp/Mou/Ancelotti et.al.

Also, I don't agree that City were dominating before Pep analogy. City were good, but never dominating. Pep has destroyed the league. 90+ points season after season is not normal for any team in any era. Almost all the great managers in current football were stacked in PL (Tuchel, Mou, Klopp, Ancelotti, Conte etc. ) and Pep has still been dominating. I am certain but for Pep, any other CIty manager, both us (under Mourinho) and Pool (under KLopp) would have been in with a shout for atleast few more titles. His impact will be better felt once he leaves. Am certain, it will be status resumed for City, scrapping one or two titles every 10 years.
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I'd say that's incredibly hopeful. If by far the richest club in the country is only winning 1 or 2 titles a decade something is seriously wrong. Especially after being the dominant force for the previous decade. That would require a massive mess(e.g. United).

They won two in the five years before Pep didn't they and were really only just getting going then.

I'm not saying winning in Champs League(not sure why you brough up Sevilla, its a different competition) is a rigid measure of success but if we're hailing someone a genius it usually means they're doing or winning the very pinnacle of their profession.

I'm not saying he's a lesser manager than Tuchel or Ancelotti but you can't keep bombing out of Europe with the biggest spend in world football and be called a genius.
 
Marwood said:
I'd say that's incredibly hopeful. If by far the richest club in the country is only winning 1 or 2 titles a decade something is seriously wrong. Especially after being the dominant force for the previous decade. That would require a massive mess(e.g. United).

They won two in the five years before Pep didn't they and were really only just getting going then.

I'm not saying winning in Champs League(not sure why you brough up Sevilla, its a different competition) is a rigid measure of success but if we're hailing someone a genius it usually means they're doing or winning the very pinnacle of their profession.

I'm not saying he's a lesser manager than Tuchel or Ancelotti but you can't keep bombing out of Europe with the biggest spend in world football and be called a genius.
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I agree that a UCL win will cement his legacy, but you can't ignore what he has done in the league because of his European Failures. I brought the Sevilla example just to say that these are cup competitions and dont really mean anything. Madrid in CL is not very different to Sevilla in EL. Bang average teams with the nous to scrap into CL finals.

Also the 2 in 5 before Pep was never a foregone conclusion. Bodgers and Slippy G failed spectacularly. If you discount that, City were 1 in 5,(rather 2 in 10) which is just about normal. There was no fear of City or ultimate surrender from teams. More of a who hits harder punching contest with them. But under Pep, for about 80% of the teams its over before the game begins, similar to how it was for us under SAF Era. They are just rolling over. Pep is brilliant, hard to doubt his pedigree. Unfortunately he got bankrolled by sugar daddies. He should have taken a 3-4 year curve to build his team before hitting his peak (like SAF). But that apart, he would have got there eventually as long as the owners backed him. A dominating manager. The ideal replacement that slipped our hands.


Its not that were a massive mess after being dominant for a decade, its just that these managers are exceptional. SAF and Pep are not easily replaceable, and the fall is expected.We didn't react well to it (should have won atleast one title in 10 yrs), but it wont be the same. Neither for us (After SAF) nor City (after Pep)
 
iamking said:
I agree that a UCL win will cement his legacy, but you can't ignore what he has done in the league because of his European Failures. I brought the Sevilla example just to say that these are cup competitions and dont really mean anything. Madrid in CL is not very different to Sevilla in EL. Bang average teams with the nous to scrap into CL finals.

Also the 2 in 5 before Pep was never a foregone conclusion. Bodgers and Slippy G failed spectacularly. If you discount that, City were 1 in 5,(rather 2 in 10) which is just about normal. There was no fear of City or ultimate surrender from teams. More of a who hits harder punching contest with them. But under Pep, for about 80% of the teams its over before the game begins, similar to how it was for us under SAF Era. They are just rolling over. Pep is brilliant, hard to doubt his pedigree. Unfortunately he got bankrolled by sugar daddies. He should have taken a 3-4 year curve to build his team before hitting his peak (like SAF). But that apart, he would have got there eventually as long as the owners backed him. A dominating manager. The ideal replacement that slipped our hands.


Its not that were a massive mess after being dominant for a decade, its just that these managers are exceptional. SAF and Pep are not easily replaceable, and the fall is expected.We didn't react well to it (should have won atleast one title in 10 yrs), but it wont be the same. Neither for us (After SAF) nor City (after Pep)
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So:

United haven't been a mess, its just that Pep is really good.

Champions League doesn't really count

One of the title wins pre Pep can be chalked off to make Peps record even more impressive.

I'm spotting a theme here buddy.
 
We stopped the scousers doing the treble in 1977 with Jimmy Greenhoffs clever finish from Macaris assist. It will probably take a similar moment of magic to stop City at Wembley too.
 
Why is their treble “inevitable”? EPL they get, but what makes you think they will beat Real Madrid in the CL? FA cup is also not a certainty (although they are favourites)
 
Alemar said:
Why is their treble “inevitable”? EPL they get, but what makes you think they will beat Real Madrid in the CL? FA cup is also not a certainty (although they are favourites)
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Because they're a better team than Madrid?

How else do you predict a result?
 
Alemar said:
Why is their treble “inevitable”? EPL they get, but what makes you think they will beat Real Madrid in the CL? FA cup is also not a certainty (although they are favourites)
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Because they’re much better than this Madrid side. It would take some effort for Pep to lose with this much of an advantage and I don’t think he / they will. The Madrid belief factor can’t keep doing it. And City can’t keep throwing it away.
 
When/if Man City do win the treble in June, will it induce anything more than a knowing shrug of the shoulders from the wider football world in the general? At least when United won the original treble in 1999, it had some gravitas and meaning.
 
It hasn't been a great title race this year no matter what people might argue.

That Arsenal side we beat in 99 was ten times tougher than their current team and I don't care how many points more their team this season gets. Petit and Vieira would wreck just about every midfield in the modern league and their defence only conceded something like 18 goals that year.
 
Marwood said:
So:

United haven't been a mess, its just that Pep is really good.

Champions League doesn't really count

One of the title wins pre Pep can be chalked off to make Peps record even more impressive.

I'm spotting a theme here buddy.
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I dont know what theme you are spotting "Buddy".. But I have seen the same CL argument laid against SAF and Its bull-crap. A league is a true measure of a quality of a team and its manager, the gold standard. The UCL despite its difficulty has a greater quotient of luck and determination over quality, planning and execution. There are number undeserving managers who fluke their way to UCL. So is Di Matteo better than Conte or Wenger? I can debate about this for hours. Pep not winning a CL recently has nothing to do with the kinda legacy he is setting in the PL. There has to be a limit to bitterness.

A legendary manager like SAF retires, what did you think was going to happen to us? If the owners were the sole problem, haven't they been owners since 2005. So what changed? Without SAF it was always going to go downhill. Well our clueless owners made it worse for sure, but to say we were a mess because of just them is being blinded. It was the end of an Era. The owners had only one choice to sustain the mammoth success, hire Pep and they failed.

You can quote me on this, when Pep retires, the dominoes will fall at City. The expectation to continuously win titles is not an easy burden for any normal manager. Be it Moyes after SAF or anybody else for City after Pep. The cookie will crumble. Any blind person can see the city pre-Pep is not the same as the City today. Its not even close. To just use City crawling to a title where Pool flopped, pre-Pep and equating it to City's dominance under Pep reeks of ignorance or tribalism at best.
 
iamking said:
I don't genuinely think winning in Europe is a rigid measure of a manager's 'genius'. Is Sevilla a dominating team then?. More often than not, the defensive hit and run teams have greater success in UCL and they call it as 'tactics' crap. Its been a while since UCL was won by a dominating team. Lets look at the last few UCLs for example,
Liverpool - Madrid (Liverpool was the better team, until Salah was taken out and Karius happened)
Liverpool - Tottenham (Tottenham was the better team. Liverpool got the penalty, sat and countered)
Bayern - PSG (The COVID era, where Bayern played one-off games instead of double headers to reach the final)
Chelsea - City and Madrid -Liverpool (Same thing. Chelsea and Madrid were poor, but camped and countered the dominating teams). Are any of these winners dominating?

The point is UCL is a great one-off showboating for a club, but definitely not a real measure of great team. They should rename it as a Champions cup instead of League. If anything, it should be reduced to a cup. Real Madrid have been bang average year in and year out, but manage to win the cup. Same with Sevilla, bang average but win the Europa. Its ridiculuous to suggest these are great teams. Take 2005 Milan- Liverpool, just because LIverpool won the final, can we say they are the best team out there. If a team does the double, then yes we can say they were truly dominating (like the old cup winners cup kinda). To keep saying Pep hasn't won the UCL recently doesn't make him any less of a manager than say Tuchel/Klopp/Mou/Ancelotti et.al.

Also, I don't agree that City were dominating before Pep analogy. City were good, but never dominating. Pep has destroyed the league. 90+ points season after season is not normal for any team in any era. Almost all the great managers in current football were stacked in PL (Tuchel, Mou, Klopp, Ancelotti, Conte etc. ) and Pep has still been dominating. I am certain but for Pep, any other CIty manager, both us (under Mourinho) and Pool (under KLopp) would have been in with a shout for atleast few more titles. His impact will be better felt once he leaves. Am certain, it will be status resumed for City, scrapping one or two titles every 10 years.
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You can complain all you want about it, but Pep bombed out in the CL to Monaco, Tottenham, and Lyon with huge the budget he had...those are failures in the UCL.

And Liverpool wasn't better than Madrid in the last final, they even got a valid goal disallowed when they were playing better than Liverpool.
 
iamking said:
I agree that a UCL win will cement his legacy, but you can't ignore what he has done in the league because of his European Failures. I brought the Sevilla example just to say that these are cup competitions and dont really mean anything. Madrid in CL is not very different to Sevilla in EL. Bang average teams with the nous to scrap into CL finals.

Also the 2 in 5 before Pep was never a foregone conclusion. Bodgers and Slippy G failed spectacularly. If you discount that, City were 1 in 5,(rather 2 in 10) which is just about normal. There was no fear of City or ultimate surrender from teams. More of a who hits harder punching contest with them. But under Pep, for about 80% of the teams its over before the game begins, similar to how it was for us under SAF Era. They are just rolling over. Pep is brilliant, hard to doubt his pedigree. Unfortunately he got bankrolled by sugar daddies. He should have taken a 3-4 year curve to build his team before hitting his peak (like SAF). But that apart, he would have got there eventually as long as the owners backed him. A dominating manager. The ideal replacement that slipped our hands.


Its not that were a massive mess after being dominant for a decade, its just that these managers are exceptional. SAF and Pep are not easily replaceable, and the fall is expected.We didn't react well to it (should have won atleast one title in 10 yrs), but it wont be the same. Neither for us (After SAF) nor City (after Pep)
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United vas been a massive mess since SAF left, overpaying for average players, and hiring past it managers, plus having Woodward.

And a team like Real who dominates Europe to the point that nobody comes close to them in trophies and semifinals played, means they are scary in Europe no matter what's their state on the spanish league...there is a reason they are the only team who has made the UCL his back yard trophy and not other teams.

You can undermine the UCL all you want, but reality says even Pep wants to win the UCL so bad, as he has bottled it many times since he doesn't manage Messi.
 
Gazza said:
That doesn't make it "inevitable" though
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Never said it did.

The question was what makes you think City will beat Madrid.

Pretty simple. City are better.

iamking said:
I dont know what theme you are spotting "Buddy".. But I have seen the same CL argument laid against SAF and Its bull-crap. A league is a true measure of a quality of a team and its manager, the gold standard. The UCL despite its difficulty has a greater quotient of luck and determination over quality, planning and execution. There are number undeserving managers who fluke their way to UCL. So is Di Matteo better than Conte or Wenger? I can debate about this for hours. Pep not winning a CL recently has nothing to do with the kinda legacy he is setting in the PL. There has to be a limit to bitterness.

A legendary manager like SAF retires, what did you think was going to happen to us? If the owners were the sole problem, haven't they been owners since 2005. So what changed? Without SAF it was always going to go downhill. Well our clueless owners made it worse for sure, but to say we were a mess because of just them is being blinded. It was the end of an Era. The owners had only one choice to sustain the mammoth success, hire Pep and they failed.

You can quote me on this, when Pep retires, the dominoes will fall at City. The expectation to continuously win titles is not an easy burden for any normal manager. Be it Moyes after SAF or anybody else for City after Pep. The cookie will crumble. Any blind person can see the city pre-Pep is not the same as the City today. Its not even close. To just use City crawling to a title where Pool flopped, pre-Pep and equating it to City's dominance under Pep reeks of ignorance or tribalism at best.
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The theme I've spotted is you going great lengths to ramp up the praise for Pep

E.g. Champs league doesn't count, claiming United haven't been a mess(I mean what?!) and best of all City's title win pre Pep somehow isn't the same because Gerrard slipped.

Strange stuff.

Along with stuff like "you can't say he's not as good as Tuchel." Which I havent.

Or "you can't disregard the league." Again I haven't.

I'm just saying "genius" is too far.
 
Marwood said:
Never said it did.

The question was what makes you think City will beat Madrid.

Pretty simple. City are better.



The theme I've spotted is you going great lengths to ramp up the praise for Pep

E.g. Champs league doesn't count, claiming United haven't been a mess(I mean what?!) and best of all City's title win pre Pep somehow isn't the same because Gerrard slipped.

Strange stuff.

Along with stuff like "you can't say he's not as good as Tuchel." Which I havent.

Or "you can't disregard the league." Again I haven't.

I'm just saying "genius" is too far.
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fair enough. The original post you responded to was pushing back against the notion that City’s treble was “inevitable” so perhaps I got confused about what was the larger point being made.

There’s clearly nothing inevitable about then winning the Treble even though they have a great chance of doing so, but I do agree they’re a better team than Real Madrid this season, don’t think anyone would argue against that.
 
Marwood said:
Because they're a better team than Madrid?

How else do you predict a result?
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They were better team than Tuchel's Chelsea, as well. Still lost. Sir Alex won only 2 CL's in his history despite that we got ousted from the CL more times than I can count by either way weaker or lucky teams. At the end of the day, CL is one bad game and you're done. So is the FA Cup. Nothing is certain here.
 
Sviken said:
They were better team than Tuchel's Chelsea, as well. Still lost. Sir Alex won only 2 CL's in his history despite that we got ousted from the CL more times than I can count by either way weaker or lucky teams. At the end of the day, CL is one bad game and you're done. So is the FA Cup. Nothing is certain here.
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So who do you think will win?
 
Marwood said:
So who do you think will win?
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It's up for grabs. It's not like the league where I could easily predict that Arsenal would bottle it and where usually the best team wins. Both games can go either way. City obviously have the better chance, but nothing is decided. 55:45 for the Real game, 60:40 for ours if I had to guess.
 
The theme I've spotted is you going great lengths to ramp up the praise for Pep

E.g. Champs league doesn't count, claiming United haven't been a mess(I mean what?!) and best of all City's title win pre Pep somehow isn't the same because Gerrard slipped.

Strange stuff.

Along with stuff like "you can't say he's not as good as Tuchel." Which I havent.

Or "you can't disregard the league." Again I haven't.

I'm just saying "genius" is too far.
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I am a big fan of Pep and he is a genius, and I am stating my opinion with supporting logic. There is a difference in how titles are won. You can dominate start to end or you can sneak your way in. Is United 2012 win same as United double win in 07 or Treble in 99. There is a difference in how you win the titles. My point is to say Pre-Pep City title wins were not as dominant as Post-Pep City winning the PL title.

Pre-Pep City was not extraordinary. And that will be the norm once he leaves, it wont be dominating. There is hope once he leaves. What is wrong with my statement?

Also the 'United not being a mess' thing was stated in the context of ownership. Somehow ownership has become the sole responsibility of our downfall for the past 10 decades completely ignoring the fact that we lost one of the leagues greatest manager ever and it was very hard to replace/replicate him. So I am stating that United's downfall had something do with Sir Alex leaving us. Is this a fair statement? I am stating that even with Qatari ownership, without the right manager its not possible to achieve the same success as City. Am I wrong in this? Did we really lose to City because of Oil Money? or is it because of Bad manager appointments? Take a guess!
 
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Sviken said:
It's up for grabs. It's not like the league where I could easily predict that Arsenal would bottle it and where usually the best team wins. Both games can go either way. City obviously have the better chance, but nothing is decided. 55:45 for the Real game, 60:40 for ours if I had to guess.
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Right ok. What makes you say City have the better chance?
 
RedRocket9908 said:
I recon Real will knock City out of the Champions League, we will beat them in the FA Cup final, and they will win the League by a few points.
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I’d gladly take that but not positive at all. City have struck golden form at the right time while Real are faffing around losing to everybody. I feel Ancelotti’s time there is coming to an end.
 
iamking said:
I am a big fan of Pep and he is a genius, and I am stating my opinion with supporting logic. There is a difference in how titles are won. You can dominate start to end or you can sneak your way in. Is United 2012 win same as United double win in 07 or Treble in 99. There is a difference in how you win the titles. My point is to say Pre-Pep City title wins were not as dominant as Post-Pep City winning the PL title.

Pre-Pep City was not extraordinary. And that will be the norm once he leaves, it wont be dominating. There is hope once he leaves. What is wrong with my statement?

Also the 'United not being a mess' thing was stated in the context of ownership. Somehow ownership has become the sole responsibility of our downfall for the past 10 decades completely ignoring the fact that we lost one of the leagues greatest manager ever and it was very hard to replace/replicate him. So I am stating that United's downfall had something do with Sir Alex leaving us. Is this a fair statement? I am stating that even with Qatari ownership, without the right manager its not possible to achieve the same success as City. Am I wrong in this? Did we really lose to City because of Oil Money? or is it because of Bad manager appointments? Take a guess!
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City have been on an upwards curve since ~2010, they started from pretty much zero and have been bankrolled to the point where they're now the single most dominant team in the league. With the players they have and the depth of their squad, there is no reason to believe they will suddenly fall off a cliff when Pep leaves. They will bring in the next big name manager and fund him as much as necessary to achieve their goals.

Ownership really is the reason for our downfall. SAF was a true great, but the hierarchy failed to plan for the retirement of the person who the entire modern-day club structure was built upon. The squad had stagnated for several years prior to his departure (the "no value in the market" years), the Glazers were happy to squeeze every last drop of that squad without investing what was needed to stay at the top. The damage was already done by the time we did start spending money, meaning it was knee-jerk signings at the behest of managers who weren't very good in the market, had no long-term vision or roadmap for the club, and/or at the whims of a CEO who didn't know what he was doing.

That isn't the case with City. They weren't built by Pep, and their owners aren't allowing the squad to stagnate.
 
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