Van De Ven is key to their defence being able to hold a high line and not get punished every attack. Maddison is the key to unlocking Son. Anything happens to either of them and their going to get screwed and it shows. It’s similar to watching City try to play without Rodri in those 3 games he was out.

My guess is they are coming down hard on all the old breaches they 100% knew about but let slide because so Man City don’t have an precedents to point at and claim they are being targeted whilst others are being given leniency

If you look at the “zones of control” last season compared to this, Arsenal do have more defensive control and are closer to City’s level of control compared to last year

So expect more 1-0’s instead of 3-1’s. This brand of Football is “more likely” to win it but City are still City and haven’t had KDB either. They will walk the league by 10+ points

Haaland’s was similar to Neymar. He had 0 goals in his first 16 games but he was only 15 when he made his debut

20 goals, 6 assists in his next 50 games afterwards then exploded once he turned 18 and moved to Salzburg

After 8 rounds Chelsea were the only team in the Prem to win every game on xG this season, but only actually won 3 games

Then they got done by Brentford

Australia pulled out after the AFC basically put all their support behind Saudi Arabia. Last time Australia bid for the 2022 World Cup we got 1 vote. AFC don’t really like Australia that much, it was just mutually beneficial to allow us to join, but they don’t like it.

Sepp Blatter then came out a few years later and said “Australia will never host it because they can’t make enough money. World Cups need to make enough money to cover the next 4 years”

Overmars (director of football) got fired (for sending sexual texts to female staff). He had been there since 2012.

Ten Hag (manager) left. He was there since 2017.

Van Der Sar (CEO) retired. Worked there since 2012, became CEO in 2016.

New DoF Sven Mislintat bought players at high-ish prices and they didn’t work out. He then got fired

Overmars’ apparently didn’t have very good set up for the scouting department. He mostly used his clout as a former footballer to make contacts and get deals done. So when he left they basically had to rebuild the whole scouting system. Van Der Sar then had medical problems which lead him to retiring as CEO.

Basically everything went wrong at all levels of the club in about 18 months which has lead to this