It’s been a difficult season to sum up so far for City. I’ve certainly found it difficult anyway.
Clearly City haven’t quite clicked into gear yet, well that’s my opinion. But despite this, Pellegrini’s men are three points off the top of the league, a home win away from a Capital One Cup final, through safely to round four of the FA cup and safely qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League with a winnable tie with Dynamo Kiev. So maybe it’s not been too bad after all!
The truth is that every other Premier League club, manager or fan would change position with us at this moment in time. Yet still fans just like me have doubts about Manuel Pellegrini, his management and the way the season has gone. But the truth of the matter is that maybe Manuel hasn’t got everything just right this season as we are now into the second half of the season and hopefully about to peak and go on a long winning run. One thing is for sure we are certainly capable of that.
The biggest problem for us this season is that we have been missing the core of our team far too often. Our best players in recent seasons have been Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Toure, Fernandinho, Silva and Aguero. I don’t know what the stats would say but I suspect we don’t lose too many games when those players are on the pitch together. This season to date you could only consider Hart, Toure and Fernandinho to be anything like regulars. The others all troubled by injuries but with the exception of Kompany we could have 6 of them on the pitch in our upcoming games which will always increase our winning chances.
But things are now looking up for us. Pablo Zabaleta looked really refreshed and sharp last week after an injury-plagued season. Possibly not helped by three years of constant football with domestic and international commitments. Although Bacary Sagna has performed well, Zabaleta provides the team with a totally different attacking dimension as his final ball and off the ball running are outstanding. I’m not sure there are many better attacking full backs anywhere and it’s great to have Zaba back.
Another big boost is Aguero after his customary 3-4 rusty games after injury looking again like the world class striker everyone knows he is. The temptation is to play him every minute of every game but he seems to be being well managed with an average of around 70 minutes on the pitch so far this season.
David Silva also looked sharp last week vs Palace and although not yet at his best we all know what difference a fully fit David Silva makes to the team. And if Kompany can put together a run of games in the remaining games what a position City will be in for the run in.
Especially alongside an ever improving Nicolas Otamendi who I think has been outstanding recently despite my earlier reservations although he was at fault for the second goal at West Ham.
We take a look at a number of other factors City have going in their favour which shouldn’t be underestimated.
