I have some clear answers for you.
The shorter the timespan, the greater the variability in results and the more chance there is for luck to determine outcomes. That should be very intuitive to you. In one game, unexpected results happen and people are surprised but not shocked. Man City drew 1-1 against Everton… they lost to Southampton and Man Utd in consecutive matches - relegation form!
As we lengthen the timespan then you expect luck to play a smaller role and skill to play a bigger role. This season is not finished yet so the best time to judge this season will be at the end of it. A season is a decent period of time. When we get there we’ll be able to assess our performance relative to other teams. Now is too soon to draw any grand conclusions - things are tight.
I hope you’ll agree with all of that.
In the end there are likely to be a number of over and under performing teams. Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool are likely to underperform this season. Brighton, Woolwich and Villa are likely to overperform. Hard to know for us. We could finish 5th (expected) but we could finish lower or even higher (even if unlikely!).
The ownership‘s performance is best viewed over even longer periods. Why? That’s because the leadership decisions Levy makes are not very responsive - they take effect over months and years and decades. That contracts with the coach whose leadership decisions take effect over hours, days and weeks.
What does that long term performance look like? When you look over 5, 10 and 15 years then performance has been close to exemplary. It is almost impossible to overachieve over a long period of time without excellent leadership.
I hope that provides a clear and well-argued response to your questions.
I don't disagree with it, I just know where we're headed. You can quote me on it. I've been saying it even when we were third because it was so obvious based on our actual quality of football. City lost these games due to bad luck whilst playing cohesively. If anything we were the luckiest team on the planet the week before to get 3 points vs Brighton. The way we play football will not get us positive results across a season.
Man Utd underperform? They appointed a new manager, won a cup, are deep in to the knockouts of two other cups, and are top 4 playing mostly cohesive football. Chelsea & Liverpool yes, they're in a mini-crisis, but these clubs have had very recent success and this season is more likely to be a blip. Our blip was finishing 4th under Conte, otherwise we're hovering round 6th/7th post-Poch. Same this season, you'll see.
Huh? So what, we need to wait for another decade to decide whether Levy goes or not? The football decisions have been bad for years now. He's made decisions which have led to frauds leading the football side of the club, so I highly doubt we're seeing building blocks for the future put in. Everything is a fucking mess mate, respectfully.
You won't find me saying that in terms of pure league performance, if we discount cups entirely, Levy/ENIC have over-performed in the past. But the methods they used to do so won't work in the current environment and they haven't kept pace with more data heavy, analytical clubs who are now punching far more above their weight than we are.
We used to be ahead of the curve in several departments - we're now behind. How we appoint managers, how we sign players, how we run the academy. It's all outdated & chaotic. We aren't remotely cohesive or progressive. Our manager search is once again a mess, to go with the mess of the last one, and the joke of appointing Jose before that.
The party is over under ENIC. I'm not blind and won't sit here and say they haven't done good things for the club, but I have zero faith whatsoever we will return to looking competently ran. There's no signs of that change at all. Maybe if I see some I'll become more patient, but right now its the same shit, different year. It'll only be more of the same next season.
stevee
AberdeenYid and
Get in! will still be coming in here after every matchweek where we get slapped up by some team with 1/4 of our resources & telling everyone they can't expect to be City, that we're better than we were under Sugar, and that the fans are just entitled.
