You have to readjust expectations as the season goes and 70 points is a disaster at this point. It’s not recency bias, considering the trend this season has shown we’re capable of putting up a decent challenge. Progress is not finishing 4 points better than last even if it achieves top 4, thats not real improvement. If their is an injury crisis, as you suggest then maybe it’s understandable. Your point on VAR is off the mark, suggesting that we’ve heavily benefitted from it this year, which is far from the truth and simply a bullshit ABU media narrative.
What should be the realistic expectations for 2020-21?
- Thread starter Tony247
- Start date
You have to readjust expectations as the season goes and 70 points is a disaster at this point. It’s not recency bias, considering the trend this season has shown we’re capable of putting up a decent challenge. Progress is not finishing 4 points better than last even if it achieves top 4, thats not real improvement. If their is an injury crisis, as you suggest then maybe it’s understandable. Your point on VAR is off the mark, suggesting that we’ve heavily benefitted from it this year, which is far from the truth and simply a bullshit ABU media narrative.
So what are you happy with?
Ok, but then it must go both ways. A bad first half of the season should then lower expectations for where we end up on the table. But that's not how things work. Minimum demands are minimum demands. If you get 25 points in the first half of the season, then you better get 45 in the next half even if that's insanely difficult. You judge managers based on league finishes first and foremost.
You can make some pretty reasonable demands based on squad strength at the beginning of a season. I thought we were a 70-75 points team. Not good enough to challenge for a title, but strong enough to get top 4 fairly comfortably. If we were to end up in that range, then we have done what is reasonable to expect. Anything above should be considered considerable improvement.
80 + points and a trophy, FA Cup preferred over Europa. These are achievable targets based on how the season has gone. Winning a trophy is very important for this squad to build up their confidence and shed the label that’s currently attached to them of being bottlers after 4 SF losses.
Was thinking about this last night and I for one am very happy with where we are, yes we have had some tough to take results, in an ideal world we hold our lead vs Leicester, do what we should have vs Sheff Utd (or you could say the officials do what they should have) and beat one of Arsenal / Liverpool with the chances we had - that would have really put us in prime position to press forward and try and establish a buffer even from City with their upcoming fixtures, but on the flipside we could not have argued with dropping points against Aston Villa / Wolves or even Fulham and pretty much all fans who watch Utd were expecting a blip somewhere.
Now moving onto expectations, I think the next 4 weeks or so will really put clarity on the title race:
We have Everton (h), WBA (a) and Newcastle (h) whilst during the same time City have Liverpool (a), Spurs (h) and Arsenal (a) - I think if City somehow come through that with a full house, we probably need to accept the title is probably too much of a longshot to have hope for. My realistic expectation for us therefore is to do our side of the business and take 9 points, if City do trip up in those games we could be pretty close and have them at the Etihad in the not too distant future in which case I probably would say to take focus of the Europa league, especially in the away games making sure Maguire, Shaw, AWB, Bruno are rested.
The hope is that if we keep our end of the bargain, we should be pretty comfortably in the top 4, and at that stage if it looks like City are going to run away with it - we could shift focus to securing top 4, but give the 2 cups a real good go.
In summary, realistically hoping for 1 of the following 2:
- Be heavily involved in the title race, effectively either winning it or being within 3 points of the winners - in this case, if we end up exiting the cups so be it
- Be comfortably in the top 4 and win one of the cups
I would prefer the first option, and seeing more of Telles, Tuanzebe, Donny & Diallo in the cups for as long as we are in them - as we are starting to reach the time we need to seriously assess what we need in the summer window and need to see what they can offer going forward.
Now moving onto expectations, I think the next 4 weeks or so will really put clarity on the title race:
We have Everton (h), WBA (a) and Newcastle (h) whilst during the same time City have Liverpool (a), Spurs (h) and Arsenal (a) - I think if City somehow come through that with a full house, we probably need to accept the title is probably too much of a longshot to have hope for. My realistic expectation for us therefore is to do our side of the business and take 9 points, if City do trip up in those games we could be pretty close and have them at the Etihad in the not too distant future in which case I probably would say to take focus of the Europa league, especially in the away games making sure Maguire, Shaw, AWB, Bruno are rested.
The hope is that if we keep our end of the bargain, we should be pretty comfortably in the top 4, and at that stage if it looks like City are going to run away with it - we could shift focus to securing top 4, but give the 2 cups a real good go.
In summary, realistically hoping for 1 of the following 2:
- Be heavily involved in the title race, effectively either winning it or being within 3 points of the winners - in this case, if we end up exiting the cups so be it
- Be comfortably in the top 4 and win one of the cups
I would prefer the first option, and seeing more of Telles, Tuanzebe, Donny & Diallo in the cups for as long as we are in them - as we are starting to reach the time we need to seriously assess what we need in the summer window and need to see what they can offer going forward.
This was my expectations before the season started. We are on track but would be disappointing now if we don't challenge for the league.
As long as we're in the title mix until the end, or close to the end, I don't really care about our total points at all.
Play som cracking football, score plenty, win most games, and keep the title within reach until gameweek 35+!
Play som cracking football, score plenty, win most games, and keep the title within reach until gameweek 35+!
Lets keep pushing City to the end, if we are within 8 points of them, it will be an okay season, a trophy would cap it of nicely.
To do that, we need to make sure we take every game seriously.
To do that, we need to make sure we take every game seriously.
We have 44 points in 22 games so we're on pace for 76 points. We'd have to improve our PPG ratio to get to 80+.
I agree that 70, from this position, would be incredibly disappointing. Scratch that, it would be incredibly disappointing anyway: we got 66 last season with Pogba missing most of the season and Bruno only joining halfway through. Just an extra 4 points on top of a season that saw regular playing time for Lingard and Pereira would have to be seen as a failure unless there's a serious injury crisis at some point.
70pts would be disappointing but I think you've got your maths wrong there. City are on course for 83 as they've only played 20 games.
We are on course for 76pts. 22 games, 44pts so 2pts per game so far. Over 38 games that's 76.
Even we pretend the Crystal Palace and Aston Villa games didn't happen (44 pts from 20 games and extrapolate out to 36 games) we are still only on course for 79pts.
85pts at this stage would mean 41pts from the remaining 16 games and would mean picking up more than 2.5pts per game between now and the end of the season. That would be a phenomenal achievement and not very realistic in my opinion.
I actually underestimated us a bit
This is what I said in September, and it's not really changed. I'm glad so far we're doing what I expected from this group, if not maybe a bit better.
Nothing wrong with being a tad optimistic after the shit we've been served up the past 8 years! I think City will probably go over 83 points based on their current form. They have 54 points left to play for and I can see them getting close to 90 points. Of course I'm happy to be wrong, this season has been very unpredictable.
Going well so far, apart from the CL part.
Maybe so but while 70 would be disappointing I think we'll be doing well to get 80.
I agree 80 points would be a very good season considering we’ve only reached that total once since Fergie retired.
Time to revisit this thread for those who replied.
To be fair, after last summer transfer debacle hardly anyone expected top 2 finish. I too lowered my expectations. So, well done Ole and the team.
Hmm, close enough?
Exceeded expecation?
Finished 2nd without Sancho. Good call though.
So, to summarise, exceeded expectations? Good analysis on Chelsea. Well done.
Looking good.
Finished second without Sancho. Exceeded expectations?
Top 2 and in a cup final.
We'll fall short of that points total though given the circumstances of the scheduling and the players switching off once top 4 (and realistically 2nd place) was secure I'm not going to lose my shit
Wasn't expecting us to fall at the group stage in the UCL so wasn't expecting the EL to once again be a trophy we could win
Do you now think we are second on merit?
Congratulations.
I was expecting myself to be far more pessimistic ,tbh.
That's why I congratulated you. Team did better than your expectations.
You made a good call. Yeh, I wasn't expecting us to get dropped out from CL group stage. But at least the team compensated it with a good run in EL. Fingers crossed for the final.
You must be really happy by now!
All we needed was one point from three games to make our season look much better. Getting out the groups.
I always debate with myself though whether a final 16 in CL is better than a Europa League win. I don't think it is.
I always debate with myself though whether a final 16 in CL is better than a Europa League win. I don't think it is.
Happy? Satisfied?
Tony is on it. I wonder how many of these spend their time saying how bad our season has been despite predicting us to not doing as good as we have.
You guys really underestimated the elite level manager.
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I mean look at what alot of fans expected us to get. We are sitting comfortably in 2nd, surely we have to give some credit to the manager.
I mean a few on here thought Arteta was something special and they are 9th.
I too underestimated the elite level manager.
Yes we've done well. Or Liverpool dropped off alarmingly!
That all depends on the transfer window. With the same squad as we have today a top 4 and CL quarters + FA/League semis is the realistic one.