Premier League 2019-2020 Thread

[useless]

A big win for LIverpool by four goals tonight would help us as it would mean that suddenly West Ham would have a worse goal difference and then would have to beat Southampton next weekend in order to climb out of the bottom three, Watford are already in that position after getting beat 3-0 by United yesterday, because of goal difference they now have to beat Liverpool next weekend to go above us in the table. A Liverpool win by three goals tonight would also probably help us as that would put West Ham on the same goal difference as us but because we've scored four more goals than them we'd have the advantage.

[DCJonah]

I have to say I'm gaining faith just by the fact we have been awful and we still are 17th. 

Looking at the fixtures by the next time we play we could well be still in 17th with a game in hand and McGinn coming back into the team. 

 

[Zatman]

6 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

This is the kicker for me, when people say they'd rather go down than getting in an established manager but unfashionable manager to steady the ship. We have a way better chance of building something if we actuually survive the drop than going down. Don't know how people can view it otherwise.

Big Sam as an example, what have the clubs done after sacking him. Bring in footballing managers like De Boer and Silva and cant get his cloggers to play that style and none of his last clubs gave actually progressed

Same with Pulis

[useless]

By the time we're due to play again we'll actually have two games in hand as the Leicester game isn't until the Monday, before then West Ham play Liverpol away, Southampton at home and Arsenal away, and Watford play Liverpool at home and Palace away. If all those games go for us, which looking at them indivisually wouldn't be the biggest surprise, we could find ourselves still outside the bottom three and with two more games left to play than our rivals, probably won't work like that though.

[Villarocker]

I think West Ham will escape the drop due to their easier run-in. They've had a really tough run of games but could easily pick up a load of points in the last 5 or 6 games. 

[eholm]

This where we are unfortunately. Clinging onto hope that the 3 teams below us keep losing. The problem here is that I can see either Watford or West Ham grinding out a few results and edge above us. This the principal difference - I just cannot see US grinding out the required results.

We have 7 of the top 9 to play with multiple Euro places now up for grabs. We are needing 2 goals a game to draw and unless DS radically changes the formation I cannot see that changing. I hate to say it but the only way we can possibly get anywhere near the points we need is to change our style to a very defensive, spoiling game plan and pray for some magic from JG (and maybe JM) to nick a goal for us. Sickeningly this sounds exactly like Bruceball in the Championship....

However, Smith will not do this due to his playing principles and, tbh, I don’t think we have enough defensive ability to adopt this approach. 

7 wins all season - so that would suggest at least 2 wins only in last 11 games. I just can’t see where 2 wins come from let alone the other points we will need. 

[DCJonah]

11 minutes ago, eholm said:

This where we are unfortunately. Clinging onto hope that the 3 teams below us keep losing. The problem here is that I can see either Watford or West Ham grinding out a few results and edge above us. This the principal difference - I just cannot see US grinding out the required results.

We have 7 of the top 9 to play with multiple Euro places now up for grabs. We are needing 2 goals a game to draw and unless DS radically changes the formation I cannot see that changing. I hate to say it but the only way we can possibly get anywhere near the points we need is to change our style to a very defensive, spoiling game plan and pray for some magic from JG (and maybe JM) to nick a goal for us. Sickeningly this sounds exactly like Bruceball in the Championship....

However, Smith will not do this due to his playing principles and, tbh, I don’t think we have enough defensive ability to adopt this approach. 

7 wins all season - so that would suggest at least 2 wins only in last 11 games. I just can’t see where 2 wins come from let alone the other points we will need. 

What have you seen from West Ham to make you think they can grind out more results than us? 

They've been worse than us for awhile now. Their defending at times make us look organised and solid. 

[Rob182]

17 minutes ago, eholm said:

7 wins all season - so that would suggest at least 2 wins only in last 11 games. I just can’t see where 2 wins come from let alone the other points we will need. 

People were saying the same thing before we beat Burnley and Watford.

We're not some cursed team destined to lose every game. We play well in parts, we play crap in parts. Don't let our current form bog you down.

I feel like the Southampton game was a case of players not wanting to get injured for the final, and not playing as intensely as they should - hence Smith's comments after the game. That's not how we'll play for the rest of the season.

We've come 'so close' so many times this season, that we know we have it in us to play well. We just need to hope that some of these 'so close' games turn into actual points!

Arsenal away, we played well but threw it away.

Spurs away, we played well but threw it away.

Man Utd away, we played well (at times) but threw away 2 points.

Leicester (cup) home and away, we played well in both games.

Burnley away, we played well, but (almost!) threw it away near the end.

Liverpool home, we came as close as anyone has this season to beating them, but threw it away in the last 10.

We need Smith to come across the magic formula that gives us a few more of these good performances, and this time round keep the points.

[Villarocker]

I think that Watford will be the second team to go down and the third will be a straight shootout between us and West Ham on the last day. Although, to be honest, we might be lucky for it to come down to that.

 

[Delphinho123]

38 minutes ago, Villarocker said:

I think that Watford will be the second team to go down and the third will be a straight shootout between us and West Ham on the last day. Although, to be honest, we might be lucky for it to come down to that.

 

This is where I'm at as well. If you offered me a 'winner takes all' scenario at West Ham now, I'd take it. 

I was at the Southampton game and can only remember one game ever to trump that in terms of such a poor display - Wigan away last season. Smith needs to get Davis back in the team and start playing more long ball football because with players like Guilbert, Nakamba, Hause etc. we don't have enough quality to be playing it around at the back. Get Davis back, go long, win the second ball and go from there. 

As much as I like Smith and want him to succeed here, he desperatly needs to change the style of play. 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Delphinho123

[tomav84]

5 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

This is where I'm at as well. If you offered me a 'winner takes all' scenario at West Ham now, I'd take it. 

I was at the Southampton game and can only remember one game ever to trump that in terms of such a poor display - Wigan away last season. Smith needs to get Davis back in the team and start playing more long ball football because with players like Guilbert, Nakamba, Hause etc. we don't have enough quality to be playing it around at the back. Get Davis back, go long, win the second ball and go from there. 

As much as I like Smith and want him to succeed here, he desperatly needs to change the style of play. 

funnily enough after the game we drew comparisons with wigan too. we went on a 10 game winning run after that

[It's Your Round]

22 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

funnily enough after the game we drew comparisons with wigan too. we went on a 10 game winning run after that

A two game winning run would be more than welcome right now. Actually even a one game winning run would be nice!

[lexicon]

From the first 15 pages of this thread:

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We need to start with basics and beat our previous PL points tally first

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i'd snatch your hand off if you offered me 17th now. but get to 40 points nice and early please and see where it takes us would also be just dandy

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For me 17th will do just fine, an extra season in the Prem gives us another £100m, another year to get the deadwood out of the squad and big wages off the books, then with a more settled team/squad we can really invest.

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Ill be happy as long as we stay up, 

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17th is our target for this season, anything higher is just a bonus.

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If we stay up, it’s a success.

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People saying to finish as high as possible to avoid the danger of relegation is also correct and is what everyone wants but the realism for our position now is that a 17th place finish will be more then acceptable as we continue to build for the future.

 

[tomav84]

and think everyone stands by those comments. not sure your point?

by 10pm tonight we could be in the bottom 3 (unlikely) and if not, we'll highly likely be in the bottom 3 this time next week.

southampton were easily the worst team i've seen us play this season...they were shite...but were better than us in every area of the pitch (aside from the keeper...can't comment on him as he never had to make a save)

[lexicon]

3 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

and think everyone stands by those comments. not sure your point?

by 10pm tonight we could be in the bottom 3 (unlikely) and if not, we'll highly likely be in the bottom 3 this time next week.

southampton were easily the worst team i've seen us play this season...they were shite...but were better than us in every area of the pitch (aside from the keeper...can't comment on him as he never had to make a save)

No overarching point here and certainly not a critique, Tom - just an observation and to provide a little perspective. 

[useless]

Over the last ten games only Liverpool and Man City have taken more points than Southampton, and whilst they might have the worst home form in the league that statistic is skewed by their early season form, recently they haven't been that bad at St Mary's they've beat and drew with Tottenham there beaten Palace in the last month or so. Point being I don't think the Southampton game was ever going to be as easy as many were expecting, and just because we lost it doesn't mean to say that we can't possibly hope to beat anyone else, as we will play teams in far worse form than Southampton have been in between now and the end of the season, and also teams with less to play for.

Edited February 24, 2020 by useless

[VillaChris]

10 hours ago, abdulaziz1 said:

17-18, We were playing the last couple of months and hoping Fulham goes up automatically, it was meaningless.

18-19, We weren't in the top 6 until the last couple of weeks.

We've only been in the top two for two weeks in three years time.

It's not as if we were doing miracles, I don't really want to go back there. We could build on something here. This season was always going to be hard. We didn't have much time to build and we went up without a squad actually.

People are understimating the thing and some really forget some of our performances down there.

17-18 was our most consistant season down there of the three. After the slow start we were pretty much top 6 from October onwards even if we were never quite good enough to get top 2. Would've been more enjoyable but for the largely turgid football.

18-19 was simply crazy from the final whistle of play off final. Enjoyable in the end but it was enjoyable aswell when we used to have those sorts of seasons in the premier league e.g. 2003/04 and 2007/08 which were memorable and exciting.

 

[VillaChris]

8 hours ago, KentVillan said:

A big factor with the Arsenal, United, Chelsea games is they're all still in Europe:

• we play Chelsea 14th March - second leg vs Bayern is on 18th March.
• we play Man Utd 19th April - quarter final second leg of Europa League is 16th April.
• we play Arsenal 9th May - semi-final second leg of europa League is 7th May.

Now clearly the third one isn't guaranteed, but there's a fair chance Man Utd will get past Brugge, meaning Chelsea and Man Utd will most likely have one eye on their European ties.

We couldn't really have picked better times to be facing them at home.

That's not to say I think we'll get 9 points, but I think our "difficult" fixture list is a lot less scary than received wisdom suggests.

Yes Chelsea is another big chance imo. Didn't realise they're playing Bayern after our match. That said Spurs had the first leg of CL just last week but they played their full strength team and indeed keep a player with a broken arm on the pitch for 90 minutes. Knowing our luck this season Chelsea will lose the first leg 5-0.

Chelsea are up and down though, aren't that diffiuclt to score past (Trez scored v them earlier this season which says it all) have likes of Kante injured for 3 weeks and Smith has beaten Lampard 3 times in his career so it's looking like another big opportunity for us.

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, Villarocker said:

I think West Ham will escape the drop due to their easier run-in. They've had a really tough run of games but could easily pick up a load of points in the last 5 or 6 games. 

Same for Watford. They have Norwich and Newcastle at home and West Ham away in their last five so that will decide their fate I think. They do finish up with Man. City at home and Arsenal away.

[VillaChris]

30 minutes ago, useless said:

Over the last ten games only Liverpool and Man City have taken more points than Southampton, and whilst they might have the worst home form in the league that statistic is skewed by their early season form, recently they haven't been that bad at St Mary's they've beat and drew with Tottenham there beaten Palace in the last month or so. Point being I don't think the Southampton game was ever going to be as easy as many were expecting, and just because we lost it doesn't mean to say that we can't possibly hope to beat anyone else, as we will play teams in far worse form than Southampton have been in between now and the end of the season, and also teams with less to play for.

It will look bad if Southampton go and lose at West Ham on Saturday. Would mean West Ham would go above us and have taken six points off someone we couldn't manage even a draw (they won at St Marys in mid December).

As the weeks go on probably the worst team to take nil from this season is Bournemouth given they remain only a point clear of us and have a tough run in themselves. I thought it was worse we didn't turn up there first half particularly as we had the highs of Leicester and Watford while we had the trauma of losing late to Spurs going into Southampton.