rubberman

2 hours ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

This weekends key fixtures:

Spurs away at Forest

Newcastle at home to an in-form Fulham

Arsenal have Brighton

United away to Liverpool

City v Palace

Hopefully a few go our way. Expect Arse, City and Plop all to win really, important we do too.

I find myself conflicted over the United v Liverpool game. I guess in this thread a Liverpool win would be good, but with my Title thread head on a draw would be better.

Do our job and see what happens. There's bound to be one upset over the weekend, just make sure it's not us. We'll need to be super focussed not to undo the work of last week.

3 hours ago, It's Your Round said:

I’ve been thinking the same. Do players really have such short attention spans?
I regularly attend 1-2 hour Teams meetings 3 or 4 times a day, and let me confirm that these are really boring. I’d love to attend a 90 min tactical lecture from the Don. 

I think this is one of the key things in the Emery revolution. The players all deserve huge credit for all accepting that they can (and will) learn from what Unai has to teach them. You'd maybe expect some not to get it, others not to buy in or hate the analysis etc, but they seem to have universally as a group gone all in. And it happened really quickly. Great teamwork and a sign of some strong leadership and togetherness in the dressing room. 

1 hour ago, JPAngel said:

I just wanted to pick up on the bit in bold, here.

When swapping out Leicester, Leeds and Southampton for Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton (in that order) our results from last season for all of our remaining fixtures this season equals 34 points (W10, D4, L8) and would leave us on 69 points. Weirdly, that's exactly in line with my pessimistic prediction for the rest of the season (W9, D7, L6) and would see us claim 5th but I'm quietly confident we can do better than that!

Interesting. I assume a fair few of those must have been during the Gerrard days, so there is almost certain to be improvement.

22 minutes ago, JPAngel said:

I'm not sure if this is any good to anyone but I'm far too excited about the prospect of getting into the Champions League and I needed an outlet.

I checked back over the last 10 or so years to get total point averages for finishing 4th and 5th (with 5th seeming likely to obtain CL football next year) to see where our current trajectory stacks up. On the chart below, the X axis is games played and the Y axis is points accrued.

As you can see, our current points total has us above where we need to be to reach the CL by around 5 points. Sometimes it's good to see things in the cold light of a spreadsheet!

For fun, I took a stab at predictions for the rest of the season. I know it's a fools errand but I wanted to see where we'd end up with some very conservative predictions and it puts us right in the middle of the average points for 4th and 5th. For context, I've not been wild with my estimates and have called the remaining games as: W:9, D:7, L:6. Crazy to think that winning just 9 of the remaining 22 matches (along with 7 draws) would see us amass a total of 69 points which would almost certainly be enough for 5th.

Crazy to say it, but that looks very pessimistic! Whichever way you look at it I can't see us getting 7 draws - it's not how we are set up. If you extrapolate season to date to the remaining 22, you get W15, D3 and L4, so 83 points. If you look at his entire time with us you still get W14, D3 and L5 for 80 points. And just for completeness, using just last season (which is kind of like-for-like timeframe), W13, D4 , L5 - 78 points. I'm sure someone has a spreadsheet to compare the remaining fixture points vs what we got last season, but I'd be surprised if it gave much of a different picture. 

Maybe injuries, europe/tiredness will come to bite us in the latter stages of the season, but while Newcastle/Spurs are already looking leggy, we're looking brilliantly managed so far. And maybe expectations are getting too high, but to finish mid-60's would be a pretty big drop-off from here.

24 minutes ago, Adman said:

Agreed.  How many times have we crumbled when winning, losing or drawing? We just look so composed and assured now whatever is happening on or off the pitch.

Unbelievable 

Yeah - the fact that we haven't dropped a single point after taking the lead in 11 games is extraordinary. Great, great mentality.

Interesting that the Opta 'supercomputer' now gives us 4.1% chance of winning the title, which is the same as Arsenal and more than Liverpool at the start of the season. We've come a long way, baby.

I also like us now being bracketed as 'more obvious contenders' for the CL places:

Quote

The supercomputer gives Spurs a 13.3% chance of finishing inside the top four, behind the more obvious contenders of Man City (99%), Liverpool (97.4%), Arsenal (94.3%) and Villa (78.9%).

https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/12/who-will-win-the-premier-league-in-2023-24/

32 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It isn't really though. 

The minimum points total needed to win the league over the past 7 or 8 seasons was 87 (on the assumption we'd need one more point than the team that did win the league)

That requires a PPG of around 2.4 to achieve from where we are.

We are currently around 2.2. So even to reach the lowest tally needed to win the league in the last 7 seasons, we'd need to improve even more

 

 

Now of course there's no guarantee we'd need that many points. But it seems likely

I think this season will be a lower winning total than we've seen for a bit. There are more sides in contention (generally) who can take points off the 'top' teams and no standout side looking unbeatable. Apart from the promoted sides pretty much everyone else would fancy their chances in most games. Fulham, Bournemouth, Everton - all mid-table (kind of in Everton's case), but getting results. Arsenal and Liverpool only just getting past Luton, Palace, Fulham etc. You may well be right that we don't have enough and eg City might win 20 in a row or whatever, but I'm on the belief train for now.

2 hours ago, useless said:

No one hails my good points so as revenge I say why we aren't in the title race

Our current form as good as it is isn't good enough to win a league title, it's going to be incredibly difficult to keep that up never mind improve upon it

Man City will probably have a spell where they go on a ten plus game winning run or something like that, they're capable of it, Liverpool might do similar too

We have too many results like Wolves, Forest, and Bournemouth ones, there are other examples in the Cups, would hardly be the biggest surprise if we dropped points against Brentford, these results aren't disasters in of themselves, perfectly normal for where we are to have occasional results like that, but they don't match up to the idea that we're in a title race.

One can say we're in a title race until we're not but can say that about any team, doesn't make it realistic, can also say any team is in a relegation battle until they're not

we've still got long way to go to finish top four yet before we even think of top place, i'm still of the mind that top anwyere in the top six would be a great league season

Our current form is good enough. We are 2 points off top, and whether calendar year, or since Unai arrived, we are one of the top 2 or 3 sides.

Yes, City might go on a run, but equally, they are in more of a 'crisis' than they have been in previous years and as things stand it is in our hands.

Everyone is having the odd poor result. It's a tough league. Ours are no worse than the other contenders.

There are, at a stretch, 5 clubs still in the title race. We are one. Same with relegation (as Everton will pull away again soon).

Agree - top 6 would be OK, but top 5 (and CL) should be the minimum from here. But I don't see why a good tilt at the top spot is unrealistic - just need to keep on what we've been doing.

1 hour ago, fightoffyour said:

Should I wear my lucky Villa boxers again on Saturday given that they are already soiled from Wednesday?

Go for it. (assuming 'good' soiling rather than 'bad' soiling). Every little helps... 

4 hours ago, stewiek2 said:

With his passing and reading of the game Id say that one tactic if Kamara is out again is to push him into the DM role and play Konsa and Carlos with Cash at RB. We have a great deep lying passer who's reading is great who can, should a full back go forward, slot into the back to form a 3 with ease.

As the season goes on he's looking more and more a steal at £31.5m

Only in an emergency for me. Stones for City showed on Weds that defenders in midfield isn't a natural fit.

On 06/12/2023 at 17:38, sne said:

Lucas Bergvall 17 y.o CM who already has a full season of top flight football and has been called up to the national side for the January camp. He's from that Brommapojkarna 2006 youth team that destroyed every other club in the world until they got split up.

Very impressive to be playing at that level as a 1 year old. Sign him up.

1 hour ago, blunther said:

I see where you're coming from but disagree - I think if the players are available, even if they cost a premium in January, we should be making acquisitions with a view to next season. We've seen what this guy can get out of players given time, so I think anyone we buy should be seen as a player for next year and not someone that's going to come in and start many matches this season. Give them a few months to bed into the system and learn from the master. 

Yeah this. We saw how exposed we were vs Liverpool and Newcastle when we had new players dropped in too soon (through injury). And equally, that eg Pau and Tilemeans have taken a while to reach the levels expected/anticipated. Ideally get one or two in with no pressure to come straight into the side and perform. We are turning into a well-oiled Emery machine and need to keep that process going.

24 minutes ago, rubberman said:

Good results so far tonight. 1 more for West ham wouldn't hurt if I'm being greedy. 

Excellent. 

Good results so far tonight. 1 more for West ham wouldn't hurt if I'm being greedy. 

1 hour ago, VillaChris said:

Hopefully West Ham get something at Spurs tonight. Spurs-Newcastle on Sunday so that will be good for us.

I think West Ham should be able to take points off Spurs - they are struggling now. An Everton win would be a lovely bonus.

Can't see Liverpool failing to beat Palace at the weekend, Utd at home vs Bournemouth is an easier game and City have Luton so really should get back to winning form. Getting something from Arsenal would be huge.

I've developed a huge man-crush on Pau. Such an elegant player to watch - everything is so calm and cultured.

1 hour ago, ender4 said:

I feel like we are going to be a little drained for the Arsenal game. We gave every ounce of blood and sweat in the Man City game, it's very very difficult to do that 2 games in a row.

Agree. But they also had a pretty draining game and we have fresh legs to change things up if Unai sees fit. I fancy we'll see a different approach vs Arsenal - they have proper midfielders so we won't have quite the run of the game there. Can't help but be confident that we can get another result here.

13 hours ago, Jas10 said:

Best in the world

 

 

47 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I'd play a compact midfield 4 just to make it tight in the middle. They won't hurt us from the sides as much as they will from popping it around and winning the midfield battle.

Getting Moreno to do a pushed up left back role will gives us some width when needed.

Cash - Konsa - Torres - Moreno

             Luiz - Kamara
   McGinn           Ramsey
           

          Diaby
                  Watkins 

Much as I love Ramsey, he doesn't seem to be back to the level needed yet - in his last couple of cameos he's looked well off the pace. I'd keep Tielemans in that role.

Will be good to have Boubs back and fresh. Worried that Cash/Dougie will pick up yellows and miss the Arse game.

2 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

I didn't realise they did half hour splits

1/2 hour time splits are really weird - especially when you have to work with people outside the time zone.

Anyway - currently in the optimistic phase of match day. 2-1 Villa. Will no doubt come back and post the opposite in a few hours time as the nerves kick in.

Huge hope. Nervous expectation. Everyone plays to their best and (don't give away a soft early goal) there's no reason we can't do this. Huge statement a win would be, massive.

33 minutes ago, GeordieVillan said:

Konsa or Carlos at centreback? Konsa or Cash at right back? Moreno to start at left back? Ramsey or Tielemans? Diaby or Bailey?

Konsa, Cash, Moreno, Tielemans and Diaby (with Ramsey and Bailey for the last 30). Bailey/Diaby is a bit of a toss up for me.

21 hours ago, tomsky_11 said:

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.