I was wondering if some players have been rushed back too quickly from injuries. Does seem like our issues have started as our injury list has shortened. Could be an explanation.
It's not an unreasonable assumption. Personally, I believe we've made strides in certain areas compared to last season. However, our fundamental challenges persist, albeit masked by an influx of energy, luck, and advancements in other facets.
The tie encapsulated our approach to games this season. We start the game in a state of total slumber, allowing opponents to exploit our sluggishness before waking up and then we exert an incredible amount of physical and mental energy to get things back under control. As the season progressed, the consequences of this approach became increasingly evident, culminating in a critical breakdown (the rubber band broke).
With that said, I'll refrain from dwelling further on this, as I've already expressed similar sentiments in recent weeks and last week, some took offense when I said that this is a very good team, but it's by no means a tittle challenging team. While statistics may offer insight, the true measure lies in what unfolds on the pitch, in front of your eyes, not a tally of points you look at after the actual game is done. Throughout the season, we failed to demonstrate a level of performance comparable to that of City or even Arsenal. Perhaps our brightest period was in January, but after the Chelsea game (4-1), it was lights out. Our form and football quickly regressed to resemble what we had been doing from September to December and what we're doing now which is "catch up football" with no form of any control on our games, only now we stopped catching anything.
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