Problem is we are facing our 2 biggest London derbies and Bayern Munich in 7 days of each other. Right now, the leauge is the more important. I would have to lose to BM but we can and still place very high in the CL league. We should beat Tottenham at home. The harder game is beating Chelsea away. We haven't won there the last 2 years.
What I'm about to write will convince most of you I'm verfiable insane. Although I can think of 2 or 3 that already think so. Man City put on a virtuoso performance to beat Liverpool. However.... I think Liverpool will end up ahead of City when all is said and done in May. Not saying Liverpool will win it but will finish ahead. I think we should win the title and I can see us in 3 semis and probably 2 finals minimum. I think the City win was largely due to Doku playing out of his skin. He's a fine player but unless he can do that week in, week out, I don't see that happening consistently enough. I think Liverpool are a better team. City is basically Haaland FC at the moment. I don't see City going to Newcastle and getting a win. I think both City and Pool will drop 3 games a piece before the end of the season and probably another loss for both in one of those games. I don't think City will finish 4 points behind us by end of the calendar year but around 6 or 7 points minimum and Liverpool 8 to 10. But in the new year, Liverpool will eventually overtake City. Interesting thing is this Sunderland side will play both Liverpool and City away within a week of each other. We will likely see one of them in the league cup Semis, assuming we beat Palace which won't be easy but we'll be at full strength by then. Chelsea will be no worse than top 5 but if Tottenham gets their key players healthy again, they could go on a run. They are missing Kulusevski, Maddison, Solanke, Bissouma, and if you want to count him their version of Dowman, Archie Gray. Once they get them back they will be tough to beat. They will draw games but I can see them not losing many and winning more than people think. Chelsea are missing Enzo, Cole Palmer and and Neto and "only" sit 6 points off us. They will be better. Much better.
Theres lots of anorak analysis about Peps new tactical systems in the Liverpool game. He punked them and is far from done. You’d much rather be City IMO. I tend to agree with Transfer Flow that city’s main issue is they need someone like Anderson for their midfield now Rodri can manage to play so often. Utd need that player as well. Liverpools defence is a mess so it really hurt them that they could buy Guehi
Rodri is a big miss. He's only 29 but he is getting injured too often. He left once to go to Spain for a year, I think after this season he'll be gonie permanently. They need quality who can play 30 league games a season minimum.
I actually don't think Liverpool is very good this season. They have a confidence problem for sure. Winning the league last season was kind of brilliant for them, actually. Their key players (Virgil, Salah) are aging, and they keep letting the younger guys down in key moments. City faced similar issues with De Bruyne and the Rodri injury last season. But I feel like Pep is figuring out City's issues quicker this year that Slot is. Maybe the fat and happy vs. slim and hungry argument?
To be fair Peps turn around has taken about a year. Slots rebuild started in the summer but the problems became very apparent in the last 6 weeks or so. So it will take many months to fix because he has two games a week and can’t just train this.
Liverpool’s problems are that they’ve got a bunch of new players and they don’t know how to press as a unit yet. Possible they’ll be a nightmare to play against next season. Means that this season is going to be our best shot to win the league for a long time. Four points clear in November despite a crazy injury list is a good position to start from.
This is where I've enjoyed Ted and others talking about the process side of football. If you've got 2 games a week, it is super difficult to prep for those games, but also develop and train entirely new tactical approaches. Also it is even harder when you've got many new players to fit in. It's all not as easy as Slot just brainstorming a new press and telling everyone to do it. Agreed.
They are clearly not as good (and lucky) as last season. City is better than last season to some extent but I think when all is said and done, City won't match them result for result. The smart money is on City to challenge us more than Liverpool. I think neither will mount a serious enough challenge and I'm guessing Liverpool will end up above them. Its "only" 4 points difference. They may see each other again (FA cup, CL) outside the league. Liverpool may end up 'helping' us when they play City again at Anfield February 7th.
Ted speaking about operational issues and process issues brings me back to my pre-law school days. It should also trigger some kind of latent trauma for anyone who's spent a meaningful amount of time at a large law firm. This is partially true, but Liverpool got their non-Isak signings done reasonably early. Wirtz, Ekitike, Frimpong, and Kerkez were in pretty early, and they've all looked like they don't fit in various ways.
The full realization of the extent to which this is true for some supporters was the sight of the Man City fans clamoring to get KDB shipped out of the Etihad after last season, arguably their greatest ever player and a man whose body broke down from the amount of times he was rushed back into action. So yeah, with that level of loyalty, I can understand players looking out for their personal interests.
They were founded in 1902 as Be Quick, then changed their name to Go Ahead three years later. They only became Go Ahead Eagles in 1971. Depending on the version, Barry Hughes was either the man who came up with the name change or one of its biggest boosters.
Vanden Borre was once projected to have a Kompany level career. Unfortunately he did not have the personality for the top of the game. Vercauteren was probably the last manager to get some consistently good football out of him and that was when he had turned 25.
As a Club fan watching that game, the two VAR calls were not the most frustrating thing (penalty one was right call and the other one I'm unsure of depending on which camera angle), but it was Taylor's complete inconsistency in dealing with fouls. Nothing for cynical counter-breaking fouls, yellow cards for a player falling over his own feet. Qué?
On the reverse angle, he moves his leg towards the player, looking for contact. I was convinced having only seen the first angle that the VAR got it right. The other angle kind of changed my mind a bit, because Sneezy's leg moves not in a natural manner to regain balance but instead to initiate contact with Vermant. In any case, I knew that wasn't going to stand the moment it went to VAR.
To be honest I always found the Kerkez and Frimpong signings kind of bizarre. So those not really panning out is perhaps the least surprising thing of this LFC malaise.
They are not being discussed enough because of the Isak and Ekitike debate. I e. Why would you buy one when you have the other. Kerkez and Frimpong can't work as they are both heavily attack influential but not the greatest at defending. Robertson at his peak was astonishing defensively. You can work around that with Carvajal and Marcelo etc etc. Cafu and R.Carlos were great defensively esp one on ones despite their attacking. You can't have two defensively frail WBs.
I don't rate Liverpool and even if they were 2 points behind us right now I wouldn't have them finishing top 2. That winning streak to start the season covered up a loooooot of cracks. I remember when they bought Wirtz there were a few pundits who said "thats a very Man City style player, what an odd purchase" and the noise was how Pool would run the league by adding all these expensive new players. Their team isn't balanced. Citys team has flaws but at least Pep has realised that if they are direct to Haaland and Doku they will catch a lot of teams out. The thing is right now Haaland is on fire, easily the best pure goalscorer in the world, and Dokus brain can now keep up with his feet. At some point Foden will have a purple patch too. So as it was about 5 weeks or so ago, the question of "who finishes higher between City and Liverpool" comes down to the question of; Does Citys other "big names" lift to fill the goal gap City will eventually have when Haaland has a slight drop off or maybe cops a niggle, or does Slot rework his Liverpool team in time to get players back in form. Right now I have more confidence in Haaland staying healthy and guys like Foden contributing more goals than I have in Slot fixing his mess.
When they get their injuried players back, Chelsea or Tottenham (my guess Chelsea) may finish top 3. Both clubs are well in the mix, Chelsea in 3rd with a lot of key people injured including Palmer and Enzo. Tottenham has a handful of very good players out. We lucky playing them now. I wouldn't be surprised if both give other top 6 sides issues with losses and dropped points. What helps us the most is our defense for those games. Bournemouth is still hanging around, Sunderland are still undefeated at home (can't attest to their away form). The league is compact in the middle right now. Interesting to see who emerges up and who drops down.
Inconsistent. On the one hard they had a good 1-2 win away against Chelsea. On the other hand they lost 0-2 to a poor Burnley and an average Man U team. At home they grabbed a huge draw against us, but people also forget they have had home draws with Aston Villa and Everton. Their home record looks good because they had easy wins against Wolves and WHU. Sunderland have a rough run after the International break, they have Fulham away which could be anything, then Bournemouth at home before back to back away games V Liverpool then Man City. Those 3 games have the potential to see them set up for strong run at top 6 with good results but 2 losses in those 3 games could see them drop down to 13th depending on how other teams go. That said thats not something unique for Sunderland, 2 losses in 3 games would hurt every team from 2nd down to 18th with how close this season is.
With Miles Lewis-Skelly having not been called up to the England squad this interlull, someone asked the ArseCast whether he would get enough minutes at Arsenal this season to make the England squad for the World Cup. It got me wondering 1) who's his competition, and 2) whether Tuchel and Arteta may have discussed expectations for him at all? 1) The answer appears to be 25 year old Spurs full back Djed Spence and 20 year old Man City full back Nico O'Reilly, both of whom are in the England squad this week. 2) I don't actually know what the protocol typically is between club and country managers, but I am curious, given Miles' age and ability, whether either or both managers feel obligated to help set expectations for him as far as what he should be doing to earn a World Cup call up? It could very well be that Miles continues to play in the Champions League in order to get some of that high stakes, international experience. A lot can happen between now and May, but I do think he'll need more opportunities in order to be selected IF the other candidates are consistently playing, and playing well.