Premier League 2019-2020 Thread

[zab6359]

5 minutes ago, romavillan said:

When we were 18th I think we had a goal difference of close to -1, every team around us and in the places above us were closer to -7. In like 6 games, that showed we were doing something right and our position looked a little false because of it. Now we've got a positive goal diff, in the current table only teams in mid table have zero or positive goal difference.

On the defence, Mings will continue to improve, Engels is a very classy defender and it's early days in his career. I like Engels a lot, he's a clean shorts type, no fuss, gets there early. Plus Konsa we've not seen enough of in the first team but all the signs look good there too. We are light in cover for the full backs possibly, or at least we could strengthen further there. I like us with Marvelous in front of a four. Even at the back though it's early days and we can only get better, cut the mistakes out and we might go on a run of clean sheets.

Palace in 6th are on the same goal difference as us! Even if we had only put 2 past Norwich we'd be well ahead of any of the teams below us. We are moving in the right direction I feel. 

[zab6359]

14 hours ago, Enda said:

One controversial thing I will say is that if we do go down this year, selling Mings, McGinn and Grealish would cover the £100m+ shortfall.

Obviously the team would be gutted, but we're well stocked in defence and Marvellous and Luiz would still tear up the Championship.

We'll cross that bridge should it ever happen, but in won't this season.

[villalad21]

1 hour ago, zab6359 said:

And a strong defense to back it up so we don't leak to many goals. I know it is early days but our goal difference compared to those below us is fantastic. 

We have a decent defense but playing this way will result in us leaking lot of goals.

We are in the top 2 in shots conceded.

[zab6359]

21 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

We have a decent defense but playing this way will result in us leaking lot of goals.

We are in the top 2 in shots conceded.

As long as we score more than we concede then all is well, Chelsea are 5th and conceded more than us but have obviously scored more than they have conceded.....................nature of the beast when play this type of football as a lower end of the league team.

Don't get the bit in bold there are 7 teams that have conceded more goals than us?

Sorry shots conceded. Doesn't really matter as long as they don't start going in.

Edited October 16, 2019 by zab6359

[villalad21]

Just now, zab6359 said:

As long as we score more than we concede then all is well, Chelsea are 5th and conceded more than us but have obviously scored more than they have conceded.....................nature of the beast when play this type of football as a lower end of the league team.

Don't get the bit in bold there are 7 teams that have conceded more goals than us?

Yes i think Lampard and Smith have similar styles.

I've kinda come to terms with it by now.

If we can score enough to keep us up i honestly don't mind conceding many goals.

I take that any day of the week compared to the depressing Lambert days.

[zab6359]

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

Yes i think Lampard and Smith have similar styles.

I've kinda come to terms with it by now.

If we can score enough to keep us up i honestly don't mind conceding many goals.

I take that any day of the week compared to the depressing Lambert days.

Same here there are times I would like to see a 4-2-3-1 but I've accepted it's unlikely with DS, so I'm just going with the flow and hope the goals go in. 

[zab6359]

16 hours ago, It's Your Round said:

We’re only 8 games in and lot can happen yet but I have to agree with the above. I think Watford won’t survive this season, Norwich seem the most likely out of the promoted teams to drop, given their injuries and lack of investment. I hope that Newcastle will go down with them, I really do want to see Bruce keep his job throughout and take them down. That’d be sweet. Sweet potato sweet. 

Norwich are shipping goals at a faster rate than any team in Premier League history, relegated or not. Not a good stat to see if you are a Norwich fan!

[It's Your Round]

59 minutes ago, zab6359 said:

Norwich are shipping goals at a faster rate than any team in Premier League history, relegated or not. Not a good stat to see if you are a Norwich fan!

We put 5 past Swindon that year too and they went down, hope that’s an omen.

[Jareth]

3 hours ago, zab6359 said:

Norwich are shipping goals at a faster rate than any team in Premier League history, relegated or not. Not a good stat to see if you are a Norwich fan!

Great stat. Best they can hope for is mass recoveries from injury, or the Jan transfer window. Either way the damage by January could be fatal to their season. 

[villalad21]

Would anyone be happy or content with a point against Brighton?

[MaVilla]

worth noting:

After 8 games (21% of the season), we have already scored 13 goals, which is 48% of the entirety of what we scored in the 2015/16 season (2015/16 - 27 goals / 2019/20 season - currently 13 goals).

We have also, after 21% of the season, won 66.3% of the games we won in our relegation season (2015/16 - 3 wins / 2019/20 season - currently 2 wins)

We are also, after 8 games (21% of season), have 47% of our relegation years points tally. (2015/16 - 17 points / 2019/20 - currently 8 points).

Finally, if we continue our current points tally per game (1 point per game av. currently), we would end on 38 points, in the last 10 years, 38 points would have kept us up in the 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018 season.

The only seasons 38 points wouldnt have kept us up was the 2010 season.

 

So basically, in 90% of the last 10 years, our current form for the first 8 games, should keep us up if we can continue it! (or do better)!!

[Vive_La_Villa]

48 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Would anyone be happy or content with a point against Brighton?

If it’s a good performance then yes. 

[VillaChris]

14 hours ago, villalad21 said:

We have a decent defense but playing this way will result in us leaking lot of goals.

We are in the top 2 in shots conceded.

Have to say I'm surprised in that stat.

From just thinking of the games Bournemouth scored twice (one a penalty) and then barely had a shot for rest of the game. Everton had one cleared off the line and Iwobi hit the post but apart from that not much, West Ham only had one shot on target and even in the Arsenal game Heaton barely had a save to make first half.

I get the feeling a lot of that is from the second halves of Spurs, Palace (when down to 10 men) and Arsenal games when we were really struggling to get out of our 18 yard boxs. In the other games I've felt we've been o.k and Heaton hasn't had a huge amount to do.

I can live with opposition having pot shots from 25 yards out, the odd one will fly into top corner but it's really not a bad strategy if that's opposition main source of attempts at your goals.

[zab6359]

6 hours ago, villalad21 said:

Would anyone be happy or content with a point against Brighton?

I'd take it with a solid performance, but begrugdingly as we need 3 to take into the next 3 PL games really.

Edited October 16, 2019 by zab6359

[VillaChris]

10 hours ago, zab6359 said:

Norwich are shipping goals at a faster rate than any team in Premier League history, relegated or not. Not a good stat to see if you are a Norwich fan!

It's not sustainable for them to win games conceding 2 or more regularly, they remind me a lot of Wigan under Martinez who always seemed to concede a shed load although of course they did stay up 3 seasons out of 4 in his tenure. Think the season they actually went down they were far better defensively than the other seasons.

[MotoMkali]

23 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Have to say I'm surprised in that stat.

From just thinking of the games Bournemouth scored twice (one a penalty) and then barely had a shot for rest of the game. Everton had one cleared off the line and Iwobi hit the post but apart from that not much, West Ham only had one shot on target and even in the Arsenal game Heaton barely had a save to make first half.

I get the feeling a lot of that is from the second halves of Spurs, Palace (when down to 10 men) and Arsenal games when we were really struggling to get out of our 18 yard boxs. In the other games I've felt we've been o.k and Heaton hasn't had a huge amount to do.

I can live with opposition having pot shots from 25 yards out, the odd one will fly into top corner but it's really not a bad strategy if that's opposition main source of attempts at your goals.

Also the Norwich game they had 17 shots with like 6 or 7 on target. But aside from their goal I can't think of any truly clear cut chances. We have also been reasonably unlucky with deflections with mings potentially causing us to concede 2 from range wilson and ndombele. 1 could have missed Heaton may have saved the other

[VillaChris]

12 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

Also the Norwich game they had 17 shots with like 6 or 7 on target. But aside from their goal I can't think of any truly clear cut chances. We have also been reasonably unlucky with deflections with mings potentially causing us to concede 2 from range wilson and ndombele. 1 could have missed Heaton may have saved the other

Many of those were likes of Jamal Lewis and the other full back wildly shooting from 25 yards!

Only thing I can remember before their goal in 87th minute was that mad scramble when Mings was maybe fortunate to not concede a penalty. As soon as we went 2-0 up we strolled rest of the game and were hardly in any danger.

Guess it's a good example where just looking at stats gives false impression of a game.

[Vive_La_Villa]

As a newly promoted team that is trying to play an open style then it’s inevitable we will concede a lot of chances.
 

I personally think our problem is we are not organised enough once we get a lead.  I know fans have criticised Smith for making us try to hold on to leads rather than continue to attack but I disagree that is what has happened.  We just can’t attack for 90 minutes. 

There’s nothing wrong with protecting a lead with men behind the ball if it’s done in an organised manner.  I don’t think we are very good at it and more work is needed in this area. 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Vive_La_Villa

[Demitri_C]

17 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

As a newly promoted team that is trying to play an open style then it’s inevitable we will concede a lot of chances.
 

I personally think our problem is we are not organised enough once we get a lead.  I know fans have criticised Smith for making us try to hold on to leads rather than continue to attack but I disagree that is what has happened.  We just can’t attack for 90 minutes. 

There’s nothing wrong with protecting a league with men behind the ball if it’s done in an organised manner.  I don’t think we are very good at it and more work is needed in this area. 

Maybe we should sign these guys then 

 

[Philosopher]

9 hours ago, MotoMkali said:

Also the Norwich game they had 17 shots with like 6 or 7 on target. But aside from their goal I can't think of any truly clear cut chances. We have also been reasonably unlucky with deflections with mings potentially causing us to concede 2 from range wilson and ndombele. 1 could have missed Heaton may have saved the other

Yep Norwich really did have a go. I do think 5 - 1 was slightly flattering, but a convincing win was still what we deserved. I think BBC had us equal with 21 shots each with us have one more on target.

35 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

As a newly promoted team that is trying to play an open style then it’s inevitable we will concede a lot of chances.
 

I personally think our problem is we are not organised enough once we get a lead.  I know fans have criticised Smith for making us try to hold on to leads rather than continue to attack but I disagree that is what has happened.  We just can’t attack for 90 minutes. 

There’s nothing wrong with protecting a league with men behind the ball if it’s done in an organised manner.  I don’t think we are very good at it and more work is needed in this area. 

I think it's the manner of protecting a league, as you are spot on about not being able to attacking all the time, and having an attacking approach always leaves you s little open. 

Rather than defend a lead I believe the aim is to keep possession and stifle our opponents rather than defend with 10 men behind the ball. This takes a lot of practice so it's inevitable we will struggle for a few matches, till we get it down. I don't think we will really hit our stride till January.