Will we ever score again? I'm seriously worried that we won't, at least not until at least Aguero starts playing, and that's scheduled for about 2-3 weeks from now. Him and Dembele, and Fati getting back to 100% fitness from November on should give us something of a spark at least.
But we still have Valencia, a must win vs. Kiev and the Clasico in October. Thank god for the international break, seriously. For our nerves as much as for our injured players to come back. Hopefully Aguero is fit and ready to at least come off the bench in the Valencia game already, and be ready to maybe start against Kiev, where it could be absolutely crucial to have someone capable in that 9 role. Because in addition to our traditionally abysmal defense we are literally toothless right now in attack. Scoring and getting those 3 points against Kiev is absolutely crucial, if we want to have any hope of not getting grouped in the CL. I'd take a close, hard fought win or even a draw vs. Valencia, and also a draw in the Clasico or at least not get humiliated if we lose it (although they are pretty shit right now too, so hopefully with the added motivation we can sneak out a win there, could do wonders to the team's confidence heading into the second half of our CL group games).
I'd take that, if it means beating Kiev. Of course we'll have to beat them away afterwards too (and hope Bayern do their job and beat Benfica twice (or at least win and draw, that would mean Benfica being on 5 points after 4 games, and we hopefully on 6) but by then it will be November and we'll hopefully have a fully fit Fati and Aguero, and Dembele already in the mix as well, to help us with our goal scoring record. Having at least a competent attack until the end of this calendar year will be absolutely crucial, since we're not getting any better in defense and will continue conceding left and right in any case, so the only hope of actually winning games lies in our attack finally at least somewhat clicking, so we can at least outscore the weaker teams and hopefully manage to also beat Benfica later in November and make it out of the group with 9 points, while in the league after the Clasico we'll also have a pretty wide open draw of beatable opponents until the end of the first half of the season, with games against the Madrid teams, Valencia, Sociedad and Bilbao already behind us, so hopefully we finish the calendar year at least in that top 6, with 3 points or less behind that 4th place, to really not fall too far behind. We'll almost certainly be out of the CL by March at the latest, so if by then we're close or in that top 4, we shouldn't have much trouble getting that with only La Liga to play in from that point. I actually hope we go out in the Copa by the quarterfinals, don't really want us playing that semifinals 2 legged tie amidst what will probably be a pretty close fight for the top 4 in the league.
