Premier League 20/21

[square_ball]

Liverpool are by a country mile the best team in the league. I'd fancy them strongly against Bayern in Europe as well.

[BennyCake]

Liverpool will walk the league again. City will be mediocre again (Pep maybe going before seasons end), but the rest of the teams aren't good enough to claim second place. So City will likely finish runners up again.

[shark]

Liverpool will walk the league again. City will be mediocre again (Pep maybe going before seasons end), but the rest of the teams aren't good enough to claim second place. So City will likely finish runners up again.

Agree. Liverpool will be well ahead.
Can second place with 81 points really be considered mediocre though? Has the bar been raised that high? I'm sure City targeted higher, but they were better than mediocre.

[J70]

Three games gone (two for City, who didn't have much of a pre-season).

[lurganblue]

Two games done for Villa and two that would have been targeted as winnable.  Sitting where they would want to be after those fixtures.  It has defo worked out better than having the Citeh match first instead. 

Not expecting anything from Liverpool next, or the Leicester game after for that matter.

[BennyCake]

Liverpool will walk the league again. City will be mediocre again (Pep maybe going before seasons end), but the rest of the teams aren't good enough to claim second place. So City will likely finish runners up again.

Agree. Liverpool will be well ahead.
Can second place with 81 points really be considered mediocre though? Has the bar been raised that high? I'm sure City targeted higher, but they were better than mediocre.

In terms of the squad, money, facilities and supposedly great manager they have, plus the fact the standard of the teams in the PL aren't great, then yes, they were mediocre.

[Maroon Manc]

City should be doing better.

Pep inherited Aguero, Silva, De Bruyne, Sterling & Fernandinho and has spent over £750m on players since he arrived.

[GetOverTheBar]

If you can't win it, you can only finish 2nd. Bar his first season he's only not finished in the Top 2 once and that was also the only time his career he finished a season without winning something?

Guardiola gets a rough ride by Utd and Liverpool fans, not entirely sure why. But to say City should be doing better? Its 3 games in. Actually, 2 for them.

[Bronco]

City should be doing much better. As someone said Guardiola inherited world class attacking talent,all he needed to do was assemble a half-decent defence. He has utterly failed to do so despite wasting hundreds of millions.

Should have lost his job years ago.

[sid waddell]

Two league titles in four season is the bare minimum you'd have expected from Guardiola, especially with none of Manchester City's rivals being very good when he came in, he came in at a low ebb for the Premier League

He has been a failure in Europe, there's no getting away from it, and it looks unlikely he will turn things around, Manchester City look miles off where they were 18 months ago, I think he'll be gone inside a year anyway

His style has become too intense and robotic, he doesn't encourage on-pitch leadership whereas Klopp does, the personality and joy flows out of the Liverpool players whereas City have become a team of faceless, miserable automatons

He has been well overshadowed by Klopp and Liverpool at this stage

[GetOverTheBar]

Two league titles in four season is the bare minimum you'd have expected from Guardiola, especially with none of Manchester City's rivals being very good when he came in, he came in at a low ebb for the Premier League

He has been a failure in Europe, there's no getting away from it, and it looks unlikely he will turn things around, Manchester City look miles off where they were 18 months ago, I think he'll be gone inside a year anyway

His style has become too intense and robotic, he doesn't encourage on-pitch leadership whereas Klopp does, the personality and joy flows out of the Liverpool players whereas City have become a team of faceless, miserable automatons

He has been well overshadowed by Klopp and Liverpool at this stage

Football tends to go in cycles....Klopp undoubtedly is on the crest of the wave. But that wave has been two seasons long.

Guardiola has been at the top table for well over a decade now, started his management career much later to boot. It would be foolish to write him off. Your points about leadership on the City team are fair enough, no one club should look to (on the outside anyway) suffer when such a leader like Kompany goes.

We are only starting a strange new season as we've seen already, I don't think the obituaries for Pep are needed just yet. Lets remember they were written for Brendan Rodgers just over a month ago and now he's smashed City in their own back yard to look every inch the top level manager.

[Captain Obvious]

Manchester City finished 18 points off 1st last season, their title challenge was as good as over in December. Knocked out of the FA Cup by average Arsenal side and Lyon far from the best in France knocked them out of Europe. To say Guardiola should be doing better is a bit of understatement.

[BennyCake]

Two league titles in four season is the bare minimum you'd have expected from Guardiola, especially with none of Manchester City's rivals being very good when he came in, he came in at a low ebb for the Premier League

He has been a failure in Europe, there's no getting away from it, and it looks unlikely he will turn things around, Manchester City look miles off where they were 18 months ago, I think he'll be gone inside a year anyway

His style has become too intense and robotic, he doesn't encourage on-pitch leadership whereas Klopp does, the personality and joy flows out of the Liverpool players whereas City have become a team of faceless, miserable automatons

He has been well overshadowed by Klopp and Liverpool at this stage

Football tends to go in cycles....Klopp undoubtedly is on the crest of the wave. But that wave has been two seasons long.

Guardiola has been at the top table for well over a decade now, started his management career much later to boot. It would be foolish to write him off. Your points about leadership on the City team are fair enough, no one club should look to (on the outside anyway) suffer when such a leader like Kompany goes.

We are only starting a strange new season as we've seen already, I don't think the obituaries for Pep are needed just yet. Lets remember they were written for Brendan Rodgers just over a month ago and now he's smashed City in their own back yard to look every inch the top level manager.

Has he though?

Barcelona won CL in 06, so they were hardly in the doldrums, and they were there or thereabouts in the CL the two seasons before he came in. Big Sam could have won what Pep won with that Barcelona side. He inherited one of the best club sides in history.

He went to Bayern with a bagful of money. A Bayern side who were CL winners the season before and were the top team in Germany for maybe 20 years. He never got close to a CL with them. A couple of leagues, but that's a minimum requirement there.

Same with City. I don't believe he got as far in CL as Pellegrini did. And City have been poor in Europe. A couple of PL's he's won, but with all that money and players at his disposal, it's the absolute minimum you'd expect.

Until he drags a team from mid table and limited resources to success, the jury is still out on Pep.

[GetOverTheBar]

Two league titles in four season is the bare minimum you'd have expected from Guardiola, especially with none of Manchester City's rivals being very good when he came in, he came in at a low ebb for the Premier League

He has been a failure in Europe, there's no getting away from it, and it looks unlikely he will turn things around, Manchester City look miles off where they were 18 months ago, I think he'll be gone inside a year anyway

His style has become too intense and robotic, he doesn't encourage on-pitch leadership whereas Klopp does, the personality and joy flows out of the Liverpool players whereas City have become a team of faceless, miserable automatons

He has been well overshadowed by Klopp and Liverpool at this stage

Football tends to go in cycles....Klopp undoubtedly is on the crest of the wave. But that wave has been two seasons long.

Guardiola has been at the top table for well over a decade now, started his management career much later to boot. It would be foolish to write him off. Your points about leadership on the City team are fair enough, no one club should look to (on the outside anyway) suffer when such a leader like Kompany goes.

We are only starting a strange new season as we've seen already, I don't think the obituaries for Pep are needed just yet. Lets remember they were written for Brendan Rodgers just over a month ago and now he's smashed City in their own back yard to look every inch the top level manager.

Has he though?

Barcelona won CL in 06, so they were hardly in the doldrums, and they were there or thereabouts in the CL the two seasons before he came in. Big Sam could have won what Pep won with that Barcelona side. He inherited one of the best club sides in history.

He went to Bayern with a bagful of money. A Bayern side who were CL winners the season before and were the top team in Germany for maybe 20 years. He never got close to a CL with them. A couple of leagues, but that's a minimum requirement there.

Same with City. I don't believe he got as far in CL as Pellegrini did. And City have been poor in Europe. A couple of PL's he's won, but with all that money and players at his disposal, it's the absolute minimum you'd expect.

Until he drags a team from mid table and limited resources to success, the jury is still out on Pep.

Ah now come on. True, he inherited a good team, but you have to remember it was he who dumped Eto'o, Deco and for me the greatest of them all, Ronaldinho out on their holes. Back then he was called a maniac, a mad man. That was a seriously brave call by a young, inexperienced coach (I think he had done one year at Barca B prior).

He inherited good players of course, but the decisions he made set Barca on course to be probably one of the greatest club sides in history. He brought in Busquets, Pedro etc from the Youth Set up and basically cleaned Barcelona up from top to bottom.

What Guardiola did at Barca often gets the "ah sure they were good anyway" thing. Messi was only arriving onto the scene, of course having such a generational talent helps grease the wheels but the man arguably laid the foundations for both Barcelona the Club and indirectly Spain the Country to be the most dominant forces at that time. Could we make the argument Messi would have have been as good unless he had that exact coach, at that exact time?

We always hear the until he does so and so the jury is out. But when has a manager of that reputation ever dipped down to a level below when he hasn't needed to?

Guardiola isn't without his flaws, obviously no UCL at Bayern and City as yet will be the stick to beat him but that is the beauty of the European Cup - sometimes even when you totally deserve it, it's still a Cup competition.

[Armamike]

Given his resources the only true benchmark to measure success for Guardiola is the Champions League. City have made little if any headway in his time in the CL. Not just the past few weeks, but for a number of seasons there have been questions over Pep. He set himself high standards to reach from his time at Barcelona, but the fact that he didn't take Bayern and now City within a mile of winning the CL, will gnaw away at him privately.