How is it unrealistic to expect a team who spent nearly £100 million on players in the last 18 months to challenge? It's very early days obviously but it feels like we've made no progress. We're already out of one competition and if our embarrassing performance against Dortmund is anything to go by, we're just making up the numbers again in Europe.
Well, I think even though we have had a lot of disappointment in the past you have to go into each season neutral.
The only game where we have looked really poor with our top side, is the Dortmund game, and they are (arguably) a very good side playing at home. I am not sure that we can start to judge our stagnation by that performance.
I think we have played 3 games now where we looked really good, much better than in years gone by. Ozil is looking great, Sanchez has a lot more to give, but is scoring anyway, Welbeck looks like a good pick up. I wouldn't be in the least bit worried if it wasn't for the injuries.
People were not happy last year when we were top and they aren't happy this year either. I get that our fans are desperate for success, but this stuff isn't easy, no one can promise that we will definitely win and no kind of performance would persuade anyone of that. This is the real world, not some fantasy.
I see what I see on the pitch and the team looks good. If we can get our players back from injury and hang on until then, we are still right in this.
This league is never easy, there were times last year when Man City looked like dross, 8th place after 11 games last year, losing to Bayern Munich (at home), Aston Villa and Cardiff. We look better than they did and they still went on to win it.