Boring, boring City

I’m beginning to understand what people mean when they say there’s a lack of jeopardy with City, and it’s great

Supporting City is a serene experience for me at the moment. My only worry is perhaps it’s a little too serene.

Since we won the Champions League and completed The Treble back in June (remember when we did that? Good, wasn’t it?) I’ve been stuck in this kind of happy fugue state, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ever going to snap out of it.

That Treble was something I never expected to see from City, and it’s not something I’m expecting to be bettered or even equalled any time soon. 

Sure, it would be great to become the first club to win four consecutive English top-flight titles, and a quadruple (or even a sextuple) would be fantastic, but if that Treble is as good as it ever gets for us, you can consider me more than satisfied. I’m happy with my lot, and it’s a lovely feeling.

I suppose I’ve probably forgotten what losing feels like and, like a cold splash of water to the face, perhaps a painful defeat is what’s needed to jolt me from my slumber. 

But having reached the top of the mountain last season, I feel better equipped than ever to navigate the inevitable descent. What goes up must come down, and that’s just the natural order of things. Trust me, it’s all fine.

Of course, it’s pretty easy to be so zen about City at the moment considering we’re the only team in the league to have begun the season with a 100% winning record. 

Losing the Community Shield to Arsenal was a tiny bit irritating under the circumstances but honestly, I was over it by the time I’d finished the dregs of my pint, and then when Haaland put us 1-0 up at Burnley with his first touch of the season I just burst out laughing. Oh, it’s gonna be another year of that is it? Cool, cool.

Things have been so chilled lately that I’m almost having to manufacture pessimism just to feel alive. When we made our pre-season predictions for this publication a few weeks ago, you might recall I predicted that City wouldn’t retain the Premier League title and at the time I genuinely believed that. But it was still a hot take and based on what we’ve seen so far, I’m starting to feel like a right silly sausage.

And last week, when we played Newcastle, I did something I’ve never done before…I put a bet on City to lose. 

Now I appreciate I probably deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered in City Square for such an unforgivable indiscretion but before you drag me to the gallows, hear me out. City had a few injuries, the odds were very generous in a buoyant Newcastle side’s favour, and I did actually think we might lose. Since I was a kid I’ve always thought that betting against your team was a smart way to insure yourself against heartbreak, but the superstitious side of me would never allow me to go through with it.

But really, if you can’t bet against your own team when they’ve just won the lot and are probably still the best team in England, when can you? I did it, and it instantly removed all the stress from what I thought was going to be a really difficult game. When City won I was delighted to have been proved wrong, but the money I would have won if they’d lost would have been a nice comfort blanket too. Just thank fuck they didn’t draw.

I feel like I’m not the only one with so little to worry about when it comes to City at the moment that they’re just making shit up.

It seems a lot of my fellow fans have spent the summer channelling all the anxiety they usually reserve for matches into the transfer window instead, and to hear some of them go on, you’d think the whole empire was about to come crumbling down if we don’t manage to sign *checks notes* Matheus Nunes before Friday’s deadline.

I have come to really loathe the transfer window, and it’s unusual for City to still be in the market for new players at this stage of the summer. Friday night can’t come soon enough, and it won’t be the end of the world if we don’t sign anyone else. For what it’s worth I like what I’ve seen from Nunes, but I can definitely live without him, and I’m sure you can too.

I found the panic around Gündogan and Mahrez leaving earlier in the summer pretty weird too. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Gündo and will miss him a lot, but he wanted to go, he was instantly replaced by Mateo Kovačić and based on what we’ve seen so far, that doesn’t look like a bad swap at all. 

Similarly, Mahrez was a great player for City but he wasn’t really getting in the team towards the end of last season, and he was obviously always going to be replaced. Doku has since been signed and I’m really looking forward to seeing what he brings to the table.

I have seen the word “scattergun” used fairly liberally (isn’t that ironic?) when it comes to City’s transfer window, and though it may seem that way, I don’t think that’s really been the case. Had De Bruyne not got injured our business would probably already be done for the summer, and if Paquetá didn’t allegedly love a flutter even more than I do, Nunes never would have entered the conversation.

If we do get that one remaining signing done, by my calculations we will have one more senior player than we had last season. Remember last season, when we won The Treble? Good wasn’t it?

Alongside transfer window unease, City fans love nothing more than a boo boy to pick on and though he’s not quite getting the Richard Edghill treatment yet, I’m sensing a lot of - in my opinion, unfair - grumbling about Julián Álvarez at the moment.

This is a lad who only came over from Argentina 12 months ago and has since played significant roles in winning a World Cup and a Treble. This season alone he’s assisted a goal against Burnley, scored a belting winner against Newcastle and won a penalty against Sheffield United. He’s playing that number 10 role more out of necessity than anything and still seems to be learning the position. If his slightly patchy form is our biggest problem at the moment, then I think we’re doing alright.

Considering we’ve been without De Bruyne, Stones and at times Aké, Akanji, Bernardo and Foden due to injury/illness this season, not to mention that the manager has gone to Spain for a lie down, our start to the season has been bloody good.

We’re just getting started and will probably hit form around late October/early November as we usually do, and when I look around the league at the time of writing, I wonder if anyone will actually properly challenge us this season. 

Arsenal seem to have a few unresolved issues at the moment, as do Liverpool, while Chelsea and Spurs aren’t equipped for a title challenge yet and United will get nowhere near us again. If I were a betting man (which I am) my money would be on City for the title at this point, but Arsenal at 15/2 does look rather enticing too, I must admit.

We might not win the league or the Champions League again this year, but you can be sure we’ll have a bloody good go and have plenty of fun along the way. After five league titles in six seasons and a Treble, that’s about all you can ask for, isn’t it?

To conclude, my message to my fellow City fans is this: There’s nothing in the rules that says you should have stopped enjoying what happened last season by now, and it isn’t your job to be constantly in pursuit of the next thing, whether that be another trophy or a shiny new signing. So please, calm the fuck down.

It’s silly getting all worked up about a football team at the worst of times, especially when that team is as good as this one. And if you can’t trust Pep and the players to know what they’re doing by now, you probably never will.

In the immortal words of William DeVaughn: “Just be thankful for what you got”.

Dan