The Title Race 2017/18 | Done and dusted.

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peridigm said:
They look to be the real deal this season with Pep and their additions. They could have the title mentally wrapped up by December. I wouldn't say the wheels have fallen off for us but with our injuries and poor performances, our confidence is shattered right now. We'll do well if we can keep City close and stay above the rest. We've been plagued by injuries and now have players needing a rest that can't get one. Grim times ahead until Pogba and Fellaini return.
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Top Four this year is realistically a good result. Still lots of holes in the squad - fix those in the summer then we can talk Title challenges.
 
Haddock said:
Ah the famous Redcafe ceiling beyond which a player cannot improve. What arrant nonsense! Who decides how high this ceiling is? Three of the five I listed are the same age or older than Lingard. Players improve when coached well. Schweinstiger from an unspectacular winger to an excellent midfielder for instance and some players improve well into their thirties like Makelele and Ze Roberto. Life isn't FIFA where your overall rating drops when you get closer to thirty.
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You think Lingard has the same ability as Son, Eriksen, Sterling or Sane? Really?

With Lingard, age doesn't matter. He's shite. As for Rashford, he's improving clearly, as one can see. You might have a point about Martial, but he's the only one who seems to have stalled.

In what way can Mkhi and Mata "improve" when they have limited abilities is also moot. If one can improve any attacker, then there is no need to buy Dybala or Griezmann, I guess. Just do a Dr Frankenstein and "improve" Mkhi and Mata into world class players.
 
Inter Yer Nan said:
I'm interested to see where he fits. I have a feeling Jose will go with him and Lukaku up front if his form is similar to last season. I think it will be a good pairing.
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Yeah that's definitely possible imo. Although initially, I would imagine he will be gradually given a few minutes here and there and be brought on in situations where Lukaku is flat (like today).
 
City are rightfully favourites and will probably win the title but I wouldn't be so certain in suggesting they'll run away with it, or that they'll stroll to victory with ease. Naturally they'll hit a dodgy patch at some point, and one of us/Chelsea/Spurs could potentially take advantage...although Chelsea's chances seem to be dwindling.

It'd be easy to look at City and assume they'll win the league at a canter but plenty of seemingly imperious sides have faltered. City themselves have looked like runaway favourites in the past two seasons after strong starts...although they are doing a better job of sustaining that this year. They were ridiculously good until about December in 2011/12, but then started to falter and only just won the title in the end. Ancelotti's Chelsea side looked absurdly good at the start of the 2010/11 season but then hit an extended terrible spell.

City are excellent and I struggle to see them not winning it, but there'll be plenty of twists and turns to come I suspect. Either that or they'll win it with 106 points...so hopefully the former.
 
GlastonSpur said:
Pleading poverty doesn't cut it - not given what United have spent since Fergie retired. And if you look to continue following the City model - spend, spend, spend - then you are doomed to stay in their shadow, because they can always spend even more than you.

Time to take different approach.
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Don't get too cocky, mate. Some teams not talented as yours have won trophies. Until you actually begin to WIN, even Arsenal who are clearly in decline would be taken more seriously than your lot.

You can argue all you want about what your manager would have achieved if he had more resources to work with but I'd put it to you that you never really know until it happens. Having greater resources comes with a different kind of expectation and the pressure can be damning. Whilst everyone is willing to cut you some slack, overachieving with small budget, it's way different when you have money to spend. Your every failing will be scrutinized to the letter. I assure you it's a different world from what you've been used to and so it's only fair if you reserve judgement until you are in such a situation. If you think it's easier working with top players/relatively bigger budgets, ask Champs League winner Rafa Benitez how he fared when he was at almighty Madrid.

Show some respect.
 
GlastonSpur said:
The only measure of spending that has any real value is net spend, otherwise you are only looking at half of the equation. And the net spend of Spurs has been incredibly low for many, many years.

The reasons we don't spend United levels of money are (a) we have new stadium complex to fund; (b) we don't have the same income levels; (c) we've been progressing well by developing the players we already have, both in the squad and through our academy; and (d) we don't need to spend as much as United do in order to attract/sign quality players.
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You are agreeing with my point. A and B are because you were mismanaged for so long.

You seem to think Spurs are a A. Madrid,Dortmund,Juventus,Monaco etc. Teams who have spent way less than Spurs and won things.

As for academy players-you have produced one in the last 40 years or so of any note.
 
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SwansonsTache said:
Cross your fingers, because it doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. Spending, debt and wages are very much balanced against income, and this is without having CL for the last few years.

This dream you have of United going into financial ruin simply won't materialize, deal with it.
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That's not the point. The point I'm making is that a spend, spend, spend policy is not the answer to your league problems.
 
GlastonSpur said:
That's not the point. The point I'm making is that a spend, spend, spend policy is not the answer to your league problems.
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Depends what you spend spend spend on, just buying players willy nilly won't work no, but if they decide how they want to play going forward over the next 5 years with pogba, Rashford, Martial, Bailly and build the team around that then they'll be fine but sacking managers who play differnt styles every other season won't fix a thing
 
GlastonSpur said:
That's not the point. The point I'm making is that a spend, spend, spend policy is not the answer to your league problems.
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Apart from Liverpool, you lot and to an extent arsenal. All the other 3 big club has used the spend spend spend policy only. There is no other alternative to win a title apart from spending. Yes you lot have done well but for spurs finishing 2nd and 3rd is a great achievement, if we do that even after our crappy results since sir Alex's departure ,it will be counted as a failure. Leicester are a rare case and may never be repeated. But look at arsenal and Liverpool, they are not doing wonders without spending that much. Trust me if he had not even done that, we would have been finishing 7th without any trophies to show.
 
Watching City highlights on MOTD, they play some sensational football. I watched the entire 7-2 win last week and that was the same.

Much more enjoyable than the football we played all this week.
 
I said this in another thread, but i can't see who the hell is going to beat City.

I'm not going to jump the gun and say they're not going to lose a game, but at this moment in time they just look so formidable.
 
Jed I. Knight said:
Everyone should have seen it coming, because Pep only manages the winners of one team leagues.
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They'll have a blip. Even Guardiola has stated that it will be impossible to maintain this form. Just got to stay close enough when the chance comes. If we beat them at home, a 2 point gap?
 
Can we rename this thread to Manchester City love festival?
 
Just had a look and over 90 mins we've only lost 3 games in our last 40 this calendar year, Everton, Chelsea and Monaco, next 4 league games will be interesting, if we can come through those with 9 or 10 points we should have a nice gap on the chasing pack
 
Thunderhead said:
Just had a look and over 90 mins we've only lost 3 games in our last 40 this calendar year, Everton, Chelsea and Monaco, next 4 league games will be interesting, if we can come through those with 9 or 10 points we should have a nice gap on the chasing pack
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We are a hard team to beat because we are turning in 70% possession every game now, home and away, which means we are having over double to opportunity to score goals than our opponents. With the attacking talent we have it means the we need to be wasteful and the other team needs to be clinical (Chelsea), or we need to have a stinker of an off day (Everton & Monaco). We WILL get beaten a few times this season, I’m sure of it, but a 5 point gap for a team not losing is effectively 3 games to the good. Great position to be in regardless of the next 4!
 
moonunderthewater said:
They'll have a blip. Even Guardiola has stated that it will be impossible to maintain this form. Just got to stay close enough when the chance comes. If we beat them at home, a 2 point gap?
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I know/agree, they won’t keep this up.

I maintain what I’ve been saying since before the season started: We’re simply too poor going forward to pose a proper challenge this season. Mourinho’s reflex to tighten things up at the expense of attacking every time there’s a hint of adversity, just like we saw last season after Christmas, means that we needed at least a top class match winner in addition to Lukaku, to be title challengers.

It’ll be Spurs closest to City this season, making their sale of Walker look even more ridiculous and unambitious than it did this summer.
 
No way will we keep this form up all season, but when we do hit a dip in form the chasing pack are all going to have to replicate our form and hope that we replicate their form for a few weeks at least.
 
No surprise that City are running away with it. So annoying that they identified their weaknesses in the squad early and then went out and bought some quality in each of the positions.
 
Haddock said:
I thought Martial was alright. Looked like he was going to come alive in the second half when he was brought off. Then again he looked like he'd get himself sent off too. I don't doubt he has improved attackers or young players in the past. Robben, Ozil and Lampard improved under him. Drogba went from a mediocre centre forward to an imposing player under him. It's that second Chelsea spell I'm worried about. More specifically it's after effect. Did any player get better under him (including Hazard)? Fabregas evolved I'll grant him that but did anyone improve? Has he lost his touch like Wenger did post 2010 when he could no longer improve players?

I am willing to cut him some slack though. Zlatan, Pogba, Bailly, Rojo, Fellaini, Carrick and now Jones. It's an unfairly long list. Add Shaw being MIA right now. I wish he'd throw one of the younger players like Van Gaal did but that's asking too much.
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My worry is about how he'll manage our attack. After a poor season in this regard we started the season excellently with a slow but definitive nosedive over the last month or so. We've oscillated from looking brilliant in attack to disjoint and too cautious (of late only). The way Sane, Jesus and co are improving, I want to see that from our attackers consistently. And that's part of the managers job.

But looking at the season so far with hopefully the last two weeks a blip, we're heading in the right direction.
 
This place seems to have this conversation every season with usually the same people saying the same thing( it's a long season blah blah ...drop in form of others etc)

But the honest truth is that over the last few years, United tend to crumble themselves too. So when City do drop points, we will do so too.

This is the longest we have been in the title race post Sir Alex, every other time it was over for us by now.

We have Spurs at home next, then a trip to a stadium we have won 1 league game in 15 years in. I'm pretty sure we will drop points in one or both of those games.

This team have shown over the last few years that when the pressure increases in the league, they crumble.

I don't think City will have it all their own way though. Spurs will push them hard and I can see Spurs winning the head to head.
 
Hard to see past City at the moment, but it'll be interesting to see how they handle it when they have a dip. They've had cracking starts before and crumbled mentally off the back of a few bad games, so that will be the real test. They really couldn't have asked for a better start though.
 
K2K said:
This place seems to have this conversation every season with usually the same people saying the same thing( it's a long season blah blah ...drop in form of others etc)

But the honest truth is that over the last few years, United tend to crumble themselves too. So when City do drop points, we will do so too.
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We are a different team under Mourinho though. I would expect yesterday to be a one off which won't be repeated. We will obviously lose again at some point. We won't be as bad as yesterday though.

You do need a little luck to win a PL though. We haven't had any thus far. City on the other hand have had lady luck on their side. No major injuries & have took 9 points from games where they really deserved 3. To put things into context we would be top of the league if the incidents in the City games hadn't occurred.

It's a long season & you'd expect City to be on the receiving end of some bad luck at some point. We will have hopefully had all our bad breaks by then & can start to grab the momentum back.
 
Lose to Spurs and we are looking at a battle for top four. Arsenal and Chelsea would have caught up.
Game against Spurs has become very crucial.
 
Manchester are clear favorites to win the title and they should have been in the previous seasons too. Chelsea and United have already lost too many points to cover up for the rest of the season. We had to go on that incredible run of 13 wins in a row to just win the title. I don't expect us or United to emulate anything close to that this season.
 
Dept3942 said:
We are a different team under Mourinho though. I would expect yesterday to be a one off which won't be repeated. We will obviously lose again at some point. We won't be as bad as yesterday though.

You do need a little luck to win a PL though. We haven't had any thus far. City on the other hand have had lady luck on their side. No major injuries & have took 9 points from games where they really deserved 3. To put things into context we would be top of the league if the incidents in the City games hadn't occurred.

It's a long season & you'd expect City to be on the receiving end of some bad luck at some point. We will have hopefully had all our bad breaks by then & can start to grab the momentum back.
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Can you elaborate on those two sentences as I don't quite understand?
 
Adisa said:
Lose to Spurs and we are looking at a battle for top four. Arsenal and Chelsea would have caught up.
Game against Spurs has become very crucial.
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Until we put a few wins together and we’re fighting for the title again? Or why can’t we realise that nothing is decided until May? You could be fighting for the title all season and still end up in a top 4 battle in the final 3 weeks. It’s October for feck sake.
 
We can repeat that it is too early but city is far from others this year. Sure they will drop some points here and there but they will win league this year.
On positive side we will be in top three for sure. Can't see arsenal and liverpool there.
 
Dept3942 said:
We haven't had any thus far. City on the other hand have had lady luck on their side. No major injuries & have took 9 points from games where they really deserved 3. To put things into context we would be top of the league if the incidents in the City games hadn't occurred.
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It's that lost Dept again.

No major injuries:
Yeah, poor Mendy, sicknote Kompany, (improved) Delph, and car crash Aguero (you could see his sluggishness/pain on Saturday).

But yes, a bit less than United...
... it's more a reflection of the squad depth and the ability of players to play other positions.
United seem to have only 1 player per position. As mentioned many times over the past 3 years, if DDG ever got injured...

Add to the previous, Walker and Sterling missing games for Red cards.

So, not sure about the balance of 'luck'. Or the '9' points you mention.

Bournemouth, had the goal of the season (at that time), but got bossed in general.
Everton just scraped a draw against 10 men for 45+mins when 1-0 up.
<re-checks other results> errr.... Chelsea? Generally controlled and beaten. Can't really think of any other issues.

Edit: forgot Liverpool, duh. Mane and Salah skinning the defence, yep, but very vulnerable to attack.

On the other hand, going by your logic only:
lucky to get any points at Southampton (the best team united have played till Huddersfield)
Lucky to get a point at stoke.
Lucky that Liverpool couldn't put a team to the sword.


What next, 'none of City's players would get into United's' team?

To put it into context:
Farcical post.
 
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Next 2 games for us in the league could make or break our season. On one hand if we do well in both these games we are surely in a title challenge and could even surprise city by pipping them but on the other hand get 0 or 1 point from next 2 games we could be out of top 4 and the cycle of fighting in a rat race for top 4 is back again. I would be shocked if that happens again.
 
AshRK said:
Next 2 games for us in the league could make or break our season. On one hand if we do well in both these games we are surely in a title challenge and could even surprise city by pipping them but on the other hand get 0 or 1 point from next 2 games we could be out of top 4 and the cycle of fighting in a rat race for top 4 is back again. I would be shocked if that happens again.
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4 points is what I expect.

A draw at home to Tottenham is not acceptable since we handily outplayed them last season and have a better team this season. I don't think Tottenham are any better than last season; especially with Wanyama and Dembele both injured.

A park the bus job at Chelsea is what I expect, although it wouldnt surprise me if we nick it since Kante is still injured.
 
All teams gained points on us, crap week. That's why I didn't want Spurs to win.

Our game against Spurs is crucial for our league campaign since I highly doubt we'll get anything more than one point at the Bridge. We need a masterclass performance against Spurs.
 
breakout67 said:
4 points is what I expect.

A draw at home to Tottenham is not acceptable since we handily outplayed them last season and have a better team this season. I don't think Tottenham are any better than last season; especially with Wanyama and Dembele both injured.

A park the bus job at Chelsea is what I expect, although it wouldnt surprise me if we nick it since Kante is still injured.
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4 out of 6 would be acceptable but that means city could be 7 points ahead of us and that is too much. They have to start dropping points soon. I am pretty sure they will have a run of games where they start dropping points continuously. But we have to make sure we do not let the gap increase more than 5pts.
 
breakout67 said:
4 points is what I expect.

A draw at home to Tottenham is not acceptable since we handily outplayed them last season and have a better team this season. I don't think Tottenham are any better than last season; especially with Wanyama and Dembele both injured.

A park the bus job at Chelsea is what I expect, although it wouldnt surprise me if we nick it since Kante is still injured.
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I’ll be amazed if United take 4+ from your next 2 games, that would be a fantastic return, especially with a CL fixture in between. Arguably 2 of the toughest games of the season.
 
Spurs look really good. They have added depth and that will help them. They got Kane on fire again and got a very strong defense. Can't really see any strong weaknesses in what they got. Maybe a winger they could need, but with the formation they play now with 3-5-2/3-4-3 they have a team that suit it very well.

City look like favorites. Spurs second and us third at the moment. I hope we can improve and challenge, but we don't play good enough when we need to attack.
 
I think trying to break into top 4 will be a real challenge for us. Title can wait for now. That's our real aim.
 
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