tomsky_11

3 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

There are 18 games left to go and 54 points to play for.

It's way too early to write off any of the top 10 imo.

Teams are only a few wins and a few losses away from swapping positions.

Some teams are getting players back to fitness and coming into form.

Write them off for what? Top 4? Top 5? Overtaking us? Pretty sure Newcastle in 9th have basically no chance of getting ahead of us. They'd need to score 13 points more than us in 18 games, or 0.7ppg, just to tie on points come the end of the season. Even if we matched the worst 18 game return of Emery's career, which in itself is highly unlikely, Newcastle would still need 1.8ppg to get ahead.

30 points is what we got in the like-for-like of our remaining 18 fixtures last season, and is probably just below what I'd expect us to pick up this season, especially give last season's results include 5 pre-Emery games which gave us only 4 points. So Emery actually got 2ppg for the 13 games he managed last season. Even if we only get 30 points, which would be a couple of points below Emery's career average, that would require anyone from West Ham in 6th down to pick up over 2ppg for remainder of the season to even match us. None of this seems very likely.

6 minutes ago, troon_villan said:

Would absolutely love to finish on a 69

Would be our =14th best top flight season based on equalised ppg.

Would also be our first 69 point season in terms of actual points. We've had both 68 (1982/83 Div 1) and 70 (1971-72 Div 3 and 1989/90 Div 1) before.

If 3 points for a win had been in place since 1912 we'd have already had two 69 point finishes, in 1912/13 and 1921/22.

Getting 2 points more, finishing on 71 would but this season in the top 10 in our top flight history. As of now we are on course for the 5th best.

4 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Im not concerned about West Ham.

Had a quick look at their like-for-like on last season and they are only 7 points better than last season. So from the 19 fixtures they have remaining, they only got 14 points last season. Even if they double this they aren't threatening the top 4/5. 

How the table would finish if like-for-like results from last season are matched for the remainder of this season:

1. Arsenal 80 (-4)

2. Man City 77 (-12)

3. Liverpool 71 (+4)

4. Aston Villa 69 (+8)

5. Man Utd 68 (-7)

6. Spurs 66 (+6)

7. Newcastle 64 (-7)

8. Brighton 56 (-6)

19 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Like-for-like vs. last season, we are now 8 points up. So looking at a 69 point finish if we just match last season's results for the remainder (which would include a loss to Burnley, before anyone starts panicking in case it's anything but a win on Saturday...)

For us to not make top 5 at this point would require us to underperform against last season AND for one of Man Utd, West Ham, Newcastle or Brighton to go at 2ppg for the remainder of the season.

 

As it's probably gonna come down to us and Spurs for 4th, probably worth looking at how they look like-for-like against last season. They are currently 9 points up on last season, so if they match last season's results for the remainder, they are looking at a... 69 point finish.

As they won away at Brighton last year, a win tomorrow night won't change this, and anything but a win would leave them with a worse year-on-year performance than us at the halfway stage of this season.

Like-for-like vs. last season, we are now 8 points up. So looking at a 69 point finish if we just match last season's results for the remainder (which would include a loss to Burnley, before anyone starts panicking in case it's anything but a win on Saturday...)

For us to not make top 5 at this point would require us to underperform against last season AND for one of Man Utd, West Ham, Newcastle or Brighton to go at 2ppg for the remainder of the season.

5 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

If say Torres becomes injured through fatigue or he injured in a game where you would think he might have been rested, then you can argue Mings’ injury has helped create the scenario for Torres to pick up an injury.

Lenglet. Not as good a defender as Mings. But arguably a better direct fit for the Torres role.

7 hours ago, sidcow said:

I rest my case m'lud. 

Lol

15 hours ago, tomsky_11 said:

Can't believe some people are trying to kid that Buendia, Mings, Moreno and JJ aren't actually that key to us. 

Think I argued some are more key than others, rather than that none of them are key.

16 hours ago, sidcow said:

They were all regulars in last seasons run where our form was champions league qualification from. 

And they've all been out the team for most of this season, when our form is even better than last.

56 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Can't believe some people are trying to kid that Buendia, Mings, Moreno and JJ aren't actually that key to us. 

They were all regulars in last seasons run where our form was champions league qualification from. 

We've essentially been without 4 champions league qualifying quality players. 

We may have replaced some of their qualities but from the point of view of dealing with injuries, squad rotation, maintaining intensity without a fall in quality we've been severely hampered without them.

Our bench has already been strong. It could have been insanely strong. We're now in the realm where 2 or 3 points extra a season can make the world of difference. That's what squad depth brings you. 

Mings for all his defensive qualities could not do what Torres does on the ball, while Carlos and Konsa between them have stepped up to cover the leadership and defensive qualities Mings brings. Assuming Mings gets back to the same levels he was at pre-injury, I don't see him being more than cover/rotation option going forward. And, honestly I think we are in a better position now than we would've been with him. A point made on today's Athletic podcast was that the defensive system we were likely to utilise with Mings fit was perhaps less natural to Torres and may have required a period of learning (from everyone, not just Torres) that might have made us worse off.

Buendia, again hard to say we have massively missed him. Would he have been a more productive option than Zaniolo so far? Probably. But Zaniolo himself is only a rotation option, and Tielemans and Bailey stepping up to their current levels alongside McGinn and Diaby I think have more than made up for Buendia's loss and maybe doesn't happen as quickly, if at all, with Buendia taking minutes from them. With Ramsey back to add to this as well, Buendia is probably 6th choice for the three advanced midfield roles. On balance I don't think we'd be better off at this stage with him not getting injured.

I think JJ and Moreno have been the bigger losses. Moreno is still the preferred option at left back for me, though Digne has been great this season. Moreno brings different attacking qualities that I think better suit how we want to go forward, though Digne will always be important to provide an alternative approach. JJ, like Moreno, adds attacking qualities that we have lacked at times this season.

1 hour ago, Enda said:

Implicitly you’re assuming there’s no chance of a disaster, a patch where we are worse than we’ve ever been with Emery.

I think it would need to be quite a disaster. Getting to 70 points from where we are now would be a pretty substantial drop off from Emery's record to date. It's an almost identical drop in ppg (0.458) to that between Emery's first and second season at Arsenal (0.457)

Could it go worse? Sure. But it would take the worst 22 game run of Emery's 700-odd game career for us to not reach 60 points this season. So even at Emery's absolute worst we are still in European contention.

I think West Ham's drop off in 21/22 is worth comparison. I remember they had kept a very consistent first XI, similar to us, found themselves in 3rd after 11 games and there was talk of possible CL qualification. Then the injuries came. They were still 4th after 16 games, but with 28 points compared to our 35. They surpassed 35 points after game 21, hitting 37 points and found themselves back in 4th. They then saw only 19 points from the final 17 games, ending up in 7th on 56 points.

So they'd already had to start mixing up their first XI before the point we are at. We are 7 points beyond where they were at this stage and have players pushing for first XI returning rather than losing more players. I'd argue we've better cover than they had, especially in defence where they suffered the worst.

8 hours ago, tomsky_11 said:

It's higher than that. 89% chance of top 5, with it being pretty likely that England gets one of the extra spots.

Now 92.5% chance of top 5 since last update.

On 27/11/2023 at 10:50, tomsky_11 said:

Adding another graph to the mix, here's my 65 point season results projection based on fixture difficulty with 60 and 70 point adjusted lines, vs. actual point and a projection at the original 65-point trend.

Currently we are 5 points ahead of the 65 point line, 3 ahead of 70 point line, with the original projection for remainder of season getting a 70 point finish and almost certain CL qualification if it drops to 5th. Continuing our over performance on the original projection, we'd be looking at a 79 point finish.

Now 8/9 points ahead of my 65 point projection, so looking at a 73/74 point finish. Continuing current level of overperformance on the projection would get us to 86 points.

On 27/11/2023 at 10:50, tomsky_11 said:

Xmas period to Winter Break - 8 games, 13/14 points, 1.6-1.8ppg (bou MNC ARS bre SHU mnu BUR eve)

City and Arsenal toughest of this run, but both at home might help us get something. Might not need it though as plenty of opportunities to get points elsewhere, so long as we can perform away. Should be looking at maximum 6 from Sheff Utd and Burnley at home.

Already got half these points from first 3 games.

On 29/11/2023 at 09:58, tomsky_11 said:

If Emery's 38 games to date had been contained in one season, it would be the 6th most successful when compared to our previous 109 top flight seasons in terms of ppg, when equalising all seasons to 3 points for a win. If we can maintain out current run rate this season so far, it would rank 3rd, only behind the back-to-back titles of 1896/97 and 1895/96.

We've had 7 previous top flight seasons at 2ppg or more (when equalised to 3 point wins):

1. 1896/97 - 2.27 (30 games, finished 1st)

2. 1895/96 - 2.17 (30 games, finished 1st)

3. 1899/1900 - 2.12 (34 games, finished 1st)

4. 1893/94 - 2.10 (30 games, finished 1st)

5. 1980/81 - 2.05 (42 games, finished 1st)

=6. 1930/31 - 2.00 (42 games, finished 2nd)

=6. 1909/10 - 2.00 (38 games, finished 1st)

Currently going at 2.19ppg, which if sustained would be the 2nd best top flight return in our history.

On 01/12/2023 at 15:11, tomsky_11 said:

We only took 5 points last season from the equivalent of the 7 fixtures we have this month. So plenty of room to improve. Could lose to City and Arsenal as still have the opportunity to be as much as 10 points up on last season's games (which would put us 12 up for the season). Even taking 8 to 10 points would be an improvement and not a complete disaster.

7 points already from the first three of the December fixtures. Puts us 8 points up on last season in like-for-like fixtures, so only need to match results from last season for remainder of this one to reach 69 points which should get us 5th and possibly even 4th. This is made up of 6 Gerrard/Danks games, from which we took 4 points, and 16 Emery games from which we took 30 points. So plenty of scope to go beyond 69 points.

2 hours ago, Brumstopdogs said:

I still can't believe how well we're doing and would love it if we managed to qualify. A long long way to go yet though.

It's higher than that. 89% chance of top 5, with it being pretty likely that England gets one of the extra spots.

On 24/11/2023 at 11:41, tomsky_11 said:

Well it looks like we are keeping it up. So fun to watch right now.

Huge game later against the Celtics. Nice 7.30pm tip for the UK as well.

9 straight wins for Magic now, equalling franchise record. Gonna be tough to extend it beyond that as @ Brooklyn tomorrow night.

Shame Philly couldn't quite help us to 1st in the East tonight.

4 hours ago, Pongo Waring said:

We will learn a lot this month for sure. 

We only took 5 points last season from the equivalent of the 7 fixtures we have this month. So plenty of room to improve. Could lose to City and Arsenal as still have the opportunity to be as much as 10 points up on last season's games (which would put us 12 up for the season). Even taking 8 to 10 points would be an improvement and not a complete disaster.

52 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Why did England just randomly get 5 bonus points?

Explainer on points here. All English teams getting out of groups, even if only to Europa, would be ideal. Also the Spanish and Germany teams dropping asap as think they'll be biggest threat.

40 minutes ago, rubberman said:

Gah my money was on a different one.

In like-for-like games vs last season (or equivalent), we are only 2 points better off at present and the entire gain comes from matches Emery was not in charge of last season.

This might not be so bad as it sounds though and may well mean we are on course to a CL spot.

The 8 like-for-like games that Emery also managed last season achieved 19 points both this season and last, so a pretty high 2.38ppg

We have 17 games left that Emery also managed last season (or equivalent). We picked up 30 points from those same games last season, so 1.76ppg. Add that to our current total and we are at 58 points.

Our 2 point gain this season comes from 9 points in 5 fixtures that earned 7 points last season before Emery's arrival. The remaining 8 fixtures of this kind only brought 5 points last season so plenty of opportunity for gain.

So to get to 70 points we only need to equal Emery's like-for-like record last season and then get 12 points from the remaining 8 fixtures he did not take charge of last season.

Those 8 fixtures: bou(0) MNC(1) shu(1, replacing Leeds) ful(0) BRE(3) ars(0) CHE(0) cry(0)

I feel like we'd be favourites in 5/6 of those 8 games this season under Emery, so 12 points should be more than achievable.

16 hours ago, Nigel said:

forgot he did it to Doherty last season too.

Won the ball.

26 minutes ago, turvontour said:

If we can have a 400 page relegation thread each season

Not this seaso... wait... what?!

On 27/11/2023 at 15:22, Mark Albrighton said:

Just on this, we have 7 league games left this year. 

The stat I keep seeing is this is our highest number of league wins in a calendar year since 1980, also 22 wins. By my count we played 44 games that year.

I don’t know if 1980 (and 2023) represents the highest number of victories in a single year, although I would imagine it’s reasonably likely as I would hazard a guess a better record would have occurred during a year when we won the league and going back to before the turn of the 20th century there were fewer clubs in the league, so fewer matches and chances to win.

Basically I think we have to win one more this year to have outright secured the most wins across our 135 years of league football (well, those years in the top flight anyway).

If Emery's 38 games to date had been contained in one season, it would be the 6th most successful when compared to our previous 109 top flight seasons in terms of ppg, when equalising all seasons to 3 points for a win. If we can maintain out current run rate this season so far, it would rank 3rd, only behind the back-to-back titles of 1896/97 and 1895/96.

We've had 7 previous top flight seasons at 2ppg or more (when equalised to 3 point wins):

1. 1896/97 - 2.27 (30 games, finished 1st)

2. 1895/96 - 2.17 (30 games, finished 1st)

3. 1899/1900 - 2.12 (34 games, finished 1st)

4. 1893/94 - 2.10 (30 games, finished 1st)

5. 1980/81 - 2.05 (42 games, finished 1st)

=6. 1930/31 - 2.00 (42 games, finished 2nd)

=6. 1909/10 - 2.00 (38 games, finished 1st)