I’ve been bored today and trolling the fuck out of my city friend, who is, to be fair either completely demented or also trying to troll back - his latest one was, “Is it slowly dawning on you that Liverpool aren’t winning the league?”… to which I replied along the lines, “yes, winning your first 5 games as opposed to getting beat a lot like City is definitely making me fear the season ahead”.
Anyway… in my boredom, I started crunching some basic numbers around City.
We all know their best season was the year they got to 100 points - never been done before probably never be done again and they were a great team.
That season the only lost 2 and drew 4, winning - they’ve already lost 2 and drawn 1 after 5 games.
Should City somehow produce the sort of form that equals the best ever seasons form every seen, for the rest of the season - then they can get to 94 points - well good enough to win a league.
The average winning total for a league is 89 points - so, if City were to suddenly morph into a title winning side for their remaining 33 games, then they’d get to 84 points.
This is funny, because this is the points total the “worst, luckiest and most undeserving team ever to win the premier league”, actually wine it with last season.
So again… by being an average premier league title winning team from hence forth, they could scrap over the line.
To get into the 80-90 point band, where titles can be and generally are won, City are looking at winning 24-25 of their remaining 33 games as a minimum, with a few draws also needed - that’s not a lot of wiggle room.
If we, however, after our start, maintain the sort of form we saw last season across the entire season, hitting 84 points, even given our early holiday - then we’re due to hit around 87-88 points - which would still only be average form across an entire season for a winning team.
So… City need to be exceptional and significantly better than last season or this season to be in with a chance of winning it.
We need to be “as good” as last season from here on and if we are, we’re in a great position after that start - but we need to keep momentum.
So… I don’t think City have anywhere near the quality and depth in their current squad to put the run together they’d need - they’re another Haaland injury away from struggling to reach CL positions in my book.
Us, on the other hand, I’d say are better and have more depth than last year - so while that doesn’t necessarily translate into results, it certainly raises the expectations that it does.