Race for Champions League - 2023/2024

[ender4]

Just now, Farlz said:

While performances have dipped as the month has gone on, we've still got a healthy return of points and sit nicely near the top of the table. Said it a couple weeks ago or so but as long as we don't have an calamitous early 2024 then there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be able to stay in the top 4. I think we've proven to be more than good enough, just hope games don't catch up to us towards the end while Spurs only have to focus on the league is probably the only worry. 

A bit of a break in between games for January now has come at a good time though because we need it. 

It’s probably going to end up between us and Spurs for 4th.  The top 3 are just much stronger in depth than us. 

[turvontour]

Just now, ender4 said:

It’s probably going to end up between us and Spurs for 4th.  The top 3 are just much stronger in depth than us. 

I don't understand what this means though. Why have the likes have Man City been dropping points then? Conceivably, we might have just gone through our weakest phase of player availability this season. It could be that in a months time we have Digne, Kamara, Tielemans, Pau Torres, Cash plus 2 new signings all available in addition to what we've had across the last 3 league games. 

[MaVilla]

Thought this interesting.

22/23 after 20 games, versus 23/24 after 20 games.

Obviously not all have played 20 so far, but the points/positions arent way off regardless, we might be 4th by the time all play 20.

For some reason, Everton's point deduction not factored in below.

Edited December 30, 2023 by MaVilla

[R.Bear]

Man Utd's recent results make our capitulation against them all the more infuriating. Makes me sick thinking about it.

Edited December 30, 2023 by R.Bear

[Jareth]

3 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

Man Utd's recent results make our capitulation against them all the more infuriating. Makes me sick thinking about it.

No point. Have confidence in the Emery flavoured future

[Made In Aston]

The press was right when they said Man Utd was back after they beat us.... Back to being an inconsistent basket case of a club. 

[Pongo Waring]

9 hours ago, Pinebro said:

Rio just predicted Man Utd to finish 4th

Wow

Wonder what his thoughts are now

[Davkaus]

It was 6 points, now it's 9 points, but realistically, they're not chasing Man City and Arsenal, they're chasing us. If we give up an 11 point head start we should probably just delete the club. 

[Keyblade]

Our last 8 games:

Tottenham (a)

Bournemouth (a)

City (h)

Arsenal (h)

Brentford (a)

Sheffield United (h)

Manchester United (a)

Burnley (h)

We got 17 points out of this run. We are playing top 4 football no matter how you slice it. That's as tough a run of fixtures as you can get really and we've come out of it averaging over 2ppg. We can get hung up on individual results or performances, but the big picture is that we're doing our job. We're playing better than our rivals and picking up more points.

[villan-scott]

We’re going well for the CL spots. It’s almost coming to a point where I’ll be disappointed if we don’t manage it - but then reflecting on how far we’ve come so quickly I don’t want to expect too much too soon. 

I can see Bournemouth causing Spurs problems tomorrow so that’ll be an interesting game. 

[turvontour]

33 minutes ago, villan-scott said:

We’re going well for the CL spots. It’s almost coming to a point where I’ll be disappointed if we don’t manage it - but then reflecting on how far we’ve come so quickly I don’t want to expect too much too soon. 

I can see Bournemouth causing Spurs problems tomorrow so that’ll be an interesting game. 

It's got to the point where you start to wonder how the likes of Newcastle and Man U can finish above us.

Either of them would have to turn into us for the second half of the season, and we would have to turn into them. It seems increasingly unlikely that it happens.

[VillaChris]

Think we *should* get another 8 wins this season.

Bit worried we seem to be tensing up now. As said before they're going to be far more high stakes games in the closing months of the season compared to today and Boxing day so we need to get the resilient mentality back when leading as too easy for teams we're playing to get back in the game. Today should've been over when they went down to 10 men so have to win it in 90th minute was a little concern imo for the long run.

Still get another 8 wins and that takes the team to 66 points and so 4 more draws and that's 70 points and I really can't see top 4 being denied with that haul.

The promising thing is get injured players back for mid January and sign a couple of new ones at the end of the month and we can still do better than that.

[VillaChris]

3 minutes ago, turvontour said:

It's got to the point where you start to wonder how the likes of Newcastle and Man U can finish above us.

Either of them would have to turn into us for the second half of the season, and we would have to turn into them. It seems increasingly unlikely that it happens.

Not so long ago Man. United were winning 5/6 in prem. To do that and still be 11 points off us, I can't see how they come close to us unless we do an impression of MON season and go on 1 win in 10 run from March.

Even that season we were never as far clear of Arsenal as we are of Man. United now.

Newcastle I was worrying about but their away form is so poor with little sign of changing they'll just run out of games to challenge.

I think people underestimate how many games these teams on 29 or 31 points actually have to win at this point to get up to 70 points, it's basically 13/14 wins from last 18 so that's a very big ask. Even we didn't go on that sort of run this time last year.

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, R.Bear said:

Man Utd's recent results make our capitulation against them all the more infuriating. Makes me sick thinking about it.

It's very annoying but think you just have to think of it as a bit of a fluke due in part to Man United's psychological hold over us. Pisses me off that it's there but I don't think it's ever going away. Important thing is we bounced back and got a win in the next game.

[Vive_La_Villa]

7 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Not so long ago Man. United were winning 5/6 in prem. To do that and still be 11 points off us, I can't see how they come close to us unless we do an impression of MON season and go on 1 win in 10 run from March.

Even that season we were never as far clear of Arsenal as we are of Man. United now.

Newcastle I was worrying about but their away form is so poor with little sign of changing they'll just run out of games to challenge.

I think people underestimate how many games these teams on 29 or 31 points actually have to win at this point to get up to 70 points, it's basically 13/14 wins from last 18 so that's a very big ask. Even we didn't go on that sort of run this time last year.

It would need a really bad run of form which is something we have been yet to see under Emery.  It’s in our hands.

[VillaChris]

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It would need a really bad run of form which is something we have been yet to see under Emery.  It’s in our hands.

Yep our worst spell under him was those three defeats in February. Even that again might not cause us too many issues as Spurs are sort of team that will win and then suddenly lose 4 out of 5 with how they play.

Of course Sheffield and Boxing day were disappointing results in isolation but two games without a win isn't a "bad run" no matter how much it's spun on here.

[Kiwivillan]

54 minutes ago, villan-scott said:

I can see Bournemouth causing Spurs problems tomorrow so that’ll be an interesting game. 

Bournemouth 1st in the league last 6 form table with 5 wins and 1 draw (against us) Bournemouth? It's possible

[VillaAlex]

12 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Think we *should* get another 8 wins this season.

Bit worried we seem to be tensing up now. As said before they're going to be far more high stakes games in the closing months of the season compared to today and Boxing day so we need to get the resilient mentality back when leading as too easy for teams we're playing to get back in the game. Today should've been over when they went down to 10 men so have to win it in 90th minute was a little concern imo for the long run.

Still get another 8 wins and that takes the team to 66 points and so 4 more draws and that's 70 points and I really can't see top 4 being denied with that haul.

The promising thing is get injured players back for mid January and sign a couple of new ones at the end of the month and we can still do better than that.

I think it's more tiredness. Feels like we put everything into the City and Arsenal games. Every match since we've looked leggy which is no surprise given the schedule, travelling and general lack of rotation. 

We also seem to be setting the gears in each match to preserve energy. This was particularly apparent in the matches Vs Zrinski and Sheff Utd where we really played with little tempo.

I think as mentioned the January schedule came at a great time, we might get embarrassed in the FA Cup again, and we have a tough game Vs Everton but we really need to kick on then before we are back in Europe. Then Unai may need to make a decision on priorities as it's going to be super difficult to handle a deep run in the Conference League and the schedule we have in April particularly. 

[VillaChris]

Think Spurs will get turned over at Man. United without likes of Son and Sarr in next month.

Think both play tomorrow before jetting off but Kuluveski is suspended so they shouldn't be quite so lethal on the counter.

Bournemouth can certainly get at least a draw if Solanke is as clincal as he has been in last two months when the chances come.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Something else people are forgetting is the pressure. Every game is now so important to stay with where we are. For the last few years we’ve been mid-table by now.  Players will feel a new pressure Emery will have to handle.