Thread by @babuyagu

Here is the thing - it is just an opinion.

The hardest thing in any analysis is trying to separate out 'what I want' from what you are doing. If you don't like Liverpool you will find ways to justify them having a worse season than one in which they had unprecedented injuries.

https://twitter.com/terryflewers/status/1426786967841353731

So you assume that is their new base level AND more shit will go wrong on top of that. Players are one year older. Maybe this year they get injuries in the forward line too. Gini has left, etc. You push your own narrative and frame it as analysis and you don't even realise you

are doing it.

And the best example of this is supporting a team. You are hopeful. You start the season with belief. I genuinely believe we can win the league. I recognise it needs a few things to go our way - and I just believe they will... right up until the moment they don't.

Last season I said City would win the league - I believe after putting so much time and energy in trying to convince the players and supporters there is some unbreakable bond between them - they can achieve anything together - and then we prove that by being an insane outlier in

terms of points won back from losing positions to get dubbed 'mentality giants'. To then break that bond and have no fans in the stadium impacted us more. And with fans back that is a game changer for us. I know fans are back for everyone and people treats it as equal across the

board but I believe it was a bigger psychological blow for us than those other teams for reasons mentioned.

When Dale at ESPN was doing his VAR review thread to show all the decisions last season which would flip this season, it was mostly just a highlight reel of us getting

fucked over and over again.

And you just can't escape the impression that the thing you can't control - luck - was absolutely stacked against us last year. Couldn't catch a break. So many marginal things went against us, all injuries stacked up early and in the same position,

and while we did a great job until January in managing that and staying competitive - we had run the midfield into the ground by starting 5 or 6 midfielders every week - then we ended up as a car without an engine at the start of this year. And I predicted this too in ~Oct/Nov.

So I am not always positive and the whole 'rose tinted specs' thing is bollocks as I try to assess things based on averages. But last season wasn't an average season - I don't think anything else could have gone against us other than what did.

And so assuming we have an average season this year - we will already be in a MUCH better position than last season as a squad.

And my belief - the thing making me talk a title up - is that we don't have an average season. That the extended rest we took over the summer, that we

are starting this season with a full squad to choose from - and the idea that Taki, or Keita, or Ox, or Elliott - that at least one of those guys gives us something this year we didn't have last.

That isn't pie in the sky stuff. It feels very reasonable still to me.

Continuation...

https://twitter.com/babuyagu/status/1427270145945260038