u/Silent_Somewhere8539

We have only been to three CL semi finals ever before this year. We have only ever been to the final once.

A semi final against a weak Atletico (I dont care what anyone says, I watch them a lot and they are even weaker than we are and have both Lookman and Sorloth injured), with a strong chance of getting to the final.

From there, literally anything can happen.

The more I think about it, the more I believe we need to get behind the team just until the end of the season. And have the discussion on whats next after everything has been decided.

Unless by some miracle City bottle it and hand us the title, this teams window is slammed shut.

The great Sir Alex Ferguson once said something that rings true to this very day. Teams usually have a four year window to win a title. After that, the window closes and you have to rebuild the team with fresh talent to go again.

In 22/23 our window was just opening, our team was very young. The like of Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Saliba etc were all between 21-23 and had their whole careers ahead of them. So even when we collapsed at the end of the season, we knew we would be back.

Now in 25/26, we are at the end of the cycle. The players who carried us these four years have fallen off due to injury, lack of development, mental scars after so many failures, or a combination of the above.

We have ran a million miles these last four years, going all out to win a trophy and have come up short. And the players bodies and minds seem broken.

Saka massively injury prone and maybe will never be the same again, Odegaard injury prone and massively fallen off, Trossard old, Martinelli stagnated, Ben White physically finished, Timber injury prone, Calafiori injury prone, Havertz injury prone and half the player he was 2 years ago..

Of the new players we brought in, Eze is going to be 28, Gyokeres will be 28 and has flopped, Zubimendi already 27, Madueke has flopped..And our younger players who are meant to be the future and pick up from the older guard like Nwaneri and MLS have had their development stalled massively.

I dont see anyway this broken team, physically and mentally, can show up next season (after a world cup mind you) ready to go again. We need a complete reset and rebuild and I honestly feel it will be some years before we are ready to compete at the top again. We had a great four year window and unfortunately it seems we weren't able to capitalise.