Football Season Guide

Manchester City struggled badly in their defence of the league title last year and never really threatened Chelsea from February onwards, going away on a whimper. It was arguably a disappointing second season at the club for Manuel Pellegrini and he knows that the pressure is firmly on him to rectify the issues and make the Sky Blues a formidable force again. They struggled both in defence and in midfield for most of the last 12 months but have not really addressed these areas so far. The focus on their transfer activity early in the summer was the capture of Raheem Sterling and they managed to do that in time for him to have a pre-season with the club. Sterling is a potentially world-class player and a brilliant talent but his output over the last season has not been that good and one should not expect instant impact from the youngster in a star-studded City side. The only other new senior signing has been that of Fabian Delph and he is likely to play a back-up role for most of the season. On the other hand, James Milner and Stevan Jovetic have already left the club and Edin Dzeko appears destined to move to Roma before the start of the season. Kevin de Bruyne is likely to be the big name linked with City for the rest of the window and it remains to be seen whether they can pull off that deal. Overall, it has been a slightly disappointing summer transfer window for the club so far and one feel that they have not really made the strides needed to close the gap to Chelsea. There is still abundance of quality in the squad but they have lacked the sort of hunger and determination to fight for every win last year. Whether the manager is able to find the missing link and make Manchester City the team to beat remains to be seen, but they do not look like the main title contender at the moment, with Chelsea and even Arsenal looking stronger at present time.