Quote Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn View Post
I’m not expecting perfection


Literally earlier in this thread you said we should be expecting to win all 4 games. Games which include 2 tricky away games. Games we haven't won in title winning seasons.

I’m expecting the number of points that sides who have won the title have on average won
That average is a bit skewed by a few exceptional seasons of late. The average over the last 7 seasons is 94 points, thanks to a City side who are surely the best in PL history and Klopp taking Liverpool to a pretty ridiculous level - and he only got the better of them once. I'm not convinced that's the new normal. We're likely to get a points total which would have seen us there or thereabouts in most seasons before that.

I'm confused about your level of expectation and what it's based on. Early season you were complaining about how rubbish we were - even though we were winning the games - and predicting doom. After the Fulham game - the first points we dropped - you said that:

"I think people here will have to concede that Rice shouldn’t be playing for us"
https://www.goonersweb.co.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=5264
#agedlikemilk

Then after the West Ham game you said:

[if we don't bring in a target man in January] I don’t think it’s just the title that won’t happen (I think we can kiss goodbye to that now, that’s between Liverpool and Man City) but top four as well
https://www.goonersweb.co.uk/forum/s...ead.php?t=5325

When I picked you up on over-reacting to a bad result and said we'd finish top 3 you were bigging up Spurs and Villa - who never seemed credible contenders to me.

And then after the recent Villa game you declared it a "collapse". The first game we'd lost in the calendar year!
Your basis for that was it was sandwiched between the two Bayern games - a team you have declared one we should have beaten despite tipping them for the CL at the start of the season.

You're all over the shop, dude, and you massively overreact to every setback. No that there's anything to over-react to right now, we picked ourselves up after the Villa loss and CL exit and have continued to win.

We put ourselves in the situation where we have to win at Spurs and United by our failure to win easier fixtures earlier on in the season.
That's one way of looking at it. An alternative way of doing so is we've put ourselves in the situation where with 4 games to go we could win the title despite City only dropping 6 points this calendar year.

It is what it is, if we can’t challenge right to the end then there’s absolutely nothing substantive to your claim that we’ve built on last season and haven’t just hit the ceiling.
I guess that's true if you ignore all the things I mentioned in some detail which demonstrate progress. To summarise:

Last year we blew a pretty substantial lead and with 4 games to go we were all but out of it.
This year we have never had any cushion but we've stuck with a City side who are surely the best and most consistent in PL history.
Last year we lost the 6 pointers, this year we've stood up in them.
And first year back in the CL and we got through to the quarter finals for the first time in 14 years.

We've passed a load of tests we failed last year.
The difference is pretty clear.

If we lose tomorrow then we'll be all but out of the title race but I won't be losing my shit about that. You will, I imagine.
We always knew that the harder run in was a factor against us. We were never favourites because of that. The glimmer of hope would be City also have to go to Spurs where they have a poor record, but that would be clutching at straws.

I’m responding to your claim that because of City steamroller we are left with impossible task, but if we aren’t getting the points that would usually win us the title that claim is completely empty
Not impossible, but the City juggernaut have only been stopped once and that was by a team who did pretty much achieve the perfection you claim not to expect but your reaction to every setback suggests otherwise.

Overall, I can't really fault their efforts this season however things end up. We could exceed last year's points total and goals scored. We'll definitely have a much better defence and therefore goal difference. I feel I've seen progress from last year and I've evidenced that. If you don't feel that, or don't feel it's enough given the money spent then OK, I guess we agree to disagree.