And if we take the Spurs game out as some sort of outlier, then it's only fair to discount the Leeds game as well. Or we could be sensible and include both.
We were a ticking time bomb
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That was luck on top of a solid performance all round.
Of course. But you'll never find a season where we won the league and barely had any convincing comfortable wins.
I've been begging for weeks for us to have just one league game where its relaxing, where we stamp our authority on a game and put it to bed with plenty of time to spare. It doesn't look like its going to happen anytime soon.
Teams who win titles, don't grind out every single win, it's never happened and it never will.
I agree. Was fully convinced that our was going to end at some point.
The thing is, I didn't expect it to come at the hands of fecking Sheffield.
The thing is, I didn't expect it to come at the hands of fecking Sheffield.
The only season where I genuinely thought we were grinding our way to the title was SAFs last year. You don't always have to win with style, of course you don't. But I think deep down everyone knows this is not a title winning team and would only come anywhere near if everyone else that themsleves. And I don't think it'll happen. City have gotten their act together and I feel Liverpool may too (but not enough to win it maybe). For example, Chelsea under Conte were functional and boring. But you can't compare our team right with that one. They were miles better. I see us more as I did Leicester City (let me make it clear that our personnel is much better without doubt) last year, a good team that's found itself in a better position than everyone expected. I'd love for it to last and us to take this race with City down to the wire. But I just find out football too inadequate to truly believe. Our possession play is mostly crap, for one. The cohesion in general is nothing special. And you could argue that neither our front line nor our decence are genuinely excelling. Were just getting by and, till now, doing enough.
Not that I think we're going to fall away. Looking through this team, there's more there than the likes Spurs and as much as Chelsea but with the benefit of stability. So we are among the three best teams on paper IMO.
Not really considering West Brom should be 5th on expected goals, so by your account West Brom have been unfortunate beacuse of expected goals?
That stat is overused and means nothing unless used over the course of a whole season.
The simple fact is we have taken our chances in most games, others havent, hence the reason we have won the most games in the premisership this season along with City and Leicester.
And even then we had a goal difference of +43 at the end. It's +10 right now after 20 games. It's night and day.
If pogba had taken his chance against villa we could have won 3-1. If cavani had scored the header against Liverpool and Fulham we would have won by more than one goal margin. We were poor yesterday but why discredit our wins in previous matches. Also, had refs done their job properly we might have won yesterday too. Look at city villa game. City needed that luck, offside goal and a penalty. Sometimes you need them. The issue is whenever we get them people make it a big deal.
We weren't a ticking time bomb because we kept edging out 50-50 games but because defensively we have been all over the place far too often this season, it's why man city will eventually walk the league because they have the best defence.
Nah. I don't buy this narrative that we've solely relied on moments of brilliance.
I mean 90% of this place have slagged Pogba off for being shite, yet somehow he's been one of the players who've been providing magic all season?
We've been the better team in the vast majority of our wins. Albeit going a goal down is a recurring theme, granted. But that doesn't mean we've scrapped through games, we create chances and have been the better team more often than not in the games we've won.
Can't help believing that this narrative is driven by oppo fans who claim our entire progress is solely down to Bruno and nothing else.
regression to the mean in full force.
The only thing missing from what you are saying is finishing. Sorry if that hurts your wierd narrative but it's true. Every post game thread, go back and read them. Should have been comfortable but we missed 2 or 3 openers
Our finishing has been poor, but we've not created nearly enough chances in most games. There's nothing weird about what I'm saying, and it's not a narrative, which has become such a laughably overused word on here
Its entirely true and I've been saying it every week for the past month or 2 since we looked to be in it. We'll fall off because every game is a slog, every game is tight, we go behind in 50% of our games. Sure we are the better team in most, but often there's not a lot in it. We are terrible at defending set pieces and never just hammer teams or even have a comfortable win where we cruise through the game.
We've improved loads over the past year, and have become a very decent side for sure. But we arent going to win the title or seriously compete for it if we grind through every game, its unsustainable to get results through efficient finishing. It'll always normalize over time to what your average should be based on performance and regular chance creation. We have the 4th/5th best underlying attacking stats (xG) for the season, while defensively we're 11th. City, comparatively, are top in both. For what its worth, Villa funnily enough both have a better xG, fewer xGagainst and marginally more expected points (with 2 fewer games played). Anyway, even on normal points, we're on course for 76 points and are averaging 2 points per game. Which feels about right for where we are, and thats traditionally a solid 3rd place finish probably. To improve need a more consistent threat on the right wing (Sancho), need a steady midfield (holding mid) and need to learn how to defend set pieces, so we can get consistency within games, and also not get suckered punched because we are terrible at defending corners.
We've improved loads over the past year, and have become a very decent side for sure. But we arent going to win the title or seriously compete for it if we grind through every game, its unsustainable to get results through efficient finishing. It'll always normalize over time to what your average should be based on performance and regular chance creation. We have the 4th/5th best underlying attacking stats (xG) for the season, while defensively we're 11th. City, comparatively, are top in both. For what its worth, Villa funnily enough both have a better xG, fewer xGagainst and marginally more expected points (with 2 fewer games played). Anyway, even on normal points, we're on course for 76 points and are averaging 2 points per game. Which feels about right for where we are, and thats traditionally a solid 3rd place finish probably. To improve need a more consistent threat on the right wing (Sancho), need a steady midfield (holding mid) and need to learn how to defend set pieces, so we can get consistency within games, and also not get suckered punched because we are terrible at defending corners.
rubbish, all the 'close' wins barring the brighton game were ones which we deserved to win. don't be fooled by the late goals or comeback victories. in a run of games which come thick and fast we will get such games and results considering we are not the finished article. it is good to temper expectations keeping that in mind.
Absolutely. In fact my assessment was probably wrong in that we weren't grinding results as much as we were really effective but boringly so (stylistically not the scorelines).
So we had a bad, bad result last night. But the profusion of knee jerk articles is almost as frustrating as the result. Tiresome stuff. At least let's wait till it's a full blown crisis. I thought the majority opinion was we weren't champion material just yet? Or will there be new 'Apologies to Ole' articles if we win our next 3? Let's take it easy. One game and one meltdown at a time...
There’s nothing wrong with an omnibus moaning thread but it wouldn’t hurt to keep in mind what our expectations were going into this season and whether we’re meeting those expectations or not.
Nah. It's not a narrative, its the truth. Some games are finishing is slightly off (like West Brom at home, where we needed a pen to win). You look at the xG though and generally there's around 1 goal in it for our wins, which is true in reality as well. And when we drop points often times it's pretty deserved as we didn't create enough or just an equal amount. XG difference per 90 is usually a pretty good stat to show this (can look at fbref). City are top of this table with 1.09 xGdiff/90 minutes. We are 7th with 0.33. Thats nothing biased, it's just averaging the difference in xG over every league games we've played this season. I don't think this is entirely representative of us anyway, and I think we'll push our way up that table too, but at best we're a 3rd place side that can push to finish 2nd with overperformance in finishing like we've been doing this season and others not being at their best. City are underperformed finishing wise and are still top though, with the best goal difference and have been picking up steam. We just can't keep up with that as that isn't our level, not yet. The performances don't lie. We can't go behind in 50% of our games and keep getting away with it, its unsustainable.
Spot on. Starting to go overboard.
Fully agree with the OP. It's simply not realistic to pretty much start most games 1-0 down and expect to seriously challenge for trophies. There are deep routed issues that reared their ugly head last night but have been there all along and never addressed.
If we were only challenging until we lost one match, we were never truly challenging to begin with. There’s plenty of matches to play and we’ve shown we can go on strong runs. Will we do enough to win the league? Who knows. We’re not suddenly nowhere near because we lost one match.
Some of the reaction we've seen on here since the game suggests that many people were saying it without really believing it.
We have two major issues. Our biggest issue is that we can't beat anyone in a routine way. Like City do. With us every game is 50:50. City or Burnley, away or home. No easy game for us.
Second issue is a form of our players. We have only few players who play on the same level every game. Others like Rash, Bruno or AWB are capable to go from world class performance to complete shit performance and back in 7 days.
Ole gets a lot of bashing for lineup yesterday but lets be honest; that lineup still should beat SU easily. Match preparation and motivation is our huge huge problem at the moment
Second issue is a form of our players. We have only few players who play on the same level every game. Others like Rash, Bruno or AWB are capable to go from world class performance to complete shit performance and back in 7 days.
Ole gets a lot of bashing for lineup yesterday but lets be honest; that lineup still should beat SU easily. Match preparation and motivation is our huge huge problem at the moment
The only PL games we've been comfortable in have been against Everton and Leeds. Our results have been a lot better than our performances which is in no way sustainable. Even if we won the league playing the way we've been playing we're still papering over enormous cracks.
I'm quoting xG for that specific game. Not for their whole season. We scored late against them, its easy to think then could had just hold on for 5-10 more minutes and we would have drawn.
Sell pogba and martial and buy two driven forwards in Grealish and Haaland and we are good.
Ole is a smart man he knows this hence why he tried to sign Haaland, Sancho and there were rumours of grealish.
We’ve persisted with youth in the forward positions but we need some prime age, proven quality to help them (Rashford and Greenwood)
Ole is a smart man he knows this hence why he tried to sign Haaland, Sancho and there were rumours of grealish.
We’ve persisted with youth in the forward positions but we need some prime age, proven quality to help them (Rashford and Greenwood)
We are actually. The inability to defend properly is fecking us big time.
Actually it was the best example, the made their tough run during December/January when they were struggling and still getting wins.
We blew away teams also, Leipzig, Leeds & so on. But those blow out wins don't bring you title, the tough wins do.
Good OP and I agree. You cant spend a whole season grinding out results. It's fine having to grind out a result now and again but not every fecking game.
We are sloppy in possession, wasteful in front of goal, strikers who are woefully out of form and a defence that is just a little too prone to errors.
We have to stop with the casual approach to taking chances, retaining possession, winning the midfield battle and a casual approach to games in general. The Leeds game is the only game I can think of where we seemed up to for it from the start.
I hardly ever see a player get a rollicking from a team mate for giving the ball away. We need someone to do that, it should be Maguire as he is the captain and in fairness retains possession very well but is not vocal enough when needs be.
In summary I agree with OP. All title winning teams go through spells where they hockey the opposition, again only the one game this season where we have done it.
We are sloppy in possession, wasteful in front of goal, strikers who are woefully out of form and a defence that is just a little too prone to errors.
We have to stop with the casual approach to taking chances, retaining possession, winning the midfield battle and a casual approach to games in general. The Leeds game is the only game I can think of where we seemed up to for it from the start.
I hardly ever see a player get a rollicking from a team mate for giving the ball away. We need someone to do that, it should be Maguire as he is the captain and in fairness retains possession very well but is not vocal enough when needs be.
In summary I agree with OP. All title winning teams go through spells where they hockey the opposition, again only the one game this season where we have done it.
He didn't like what you wrote, because it's an indirect critique against Ole. But yes, you are absolutely right and xG is backing this up.
Our defence is without doubt a constantly ticking time bomb and has been all season, even when we've won and the scoreline has looked comfortable.
You dont concede in the first 20 minutes in virtually every game with a solid defence who know what they're doing. Neville and Carragher had a good discussion the other day about how deep our defence sits and how it's evident that they're not confident and not coached properly. The way we've defended this season is not worthy of a team who deserve a top four finish, let alone title contenders. We're just lucky this season is a season where every top team in the country has gone backwards.
You dont concede in the first 20 minutes in virtually every game with a solid defence who know what they're doing. Neville and Carragher had a good discussion the other day about how deep our defence sits and how it's evident that they're not confident and not coached properly. The way we've defended this season is not worthy of a team who deserve a top four finish, let alone title contenders. We're just lucky this season is a season where every top team in the country has gone backwards.
Not to be smart but Leipzig, Leeds and who else?
Grinding a result is how you win a title actually.
Yesterday has nothing to do with this. We just turned on arrogantly and thought the win is in the bag. There was no urgency or intensity for the 90 minutes. This wasn't the case in the previous matches.
Yesterday has nothing to do with this. We just turned on arrogantly and thought the win is in the bag. There was no urgency or intensity for the 90 minutes. This wasn't the case in the previous matches.
We have been pretty awful at home all season. We seem to have a major problem when teams come and they set up defensively we seem to start off okay but then run out of idea's very quickly then start that slow sideways passing bollocks. Think after whatever happens Saturday (god help us) we have Everton and Southampton visiting both will play defensively and hit us on the break. Could be a lot of points dropped over the next few games I fear.
I agree with this. Complacency killed us yesterday. People may lazily compare and say well that's how we have been playing all along, well that has zero truth to it because had we played like that against Liverpool or even Villa they would have just battered us to the new level. Yesterday's game reminded me of the Arsenal game from late october, zero intensity.
Totally agree 100% it's been coming
You can just look up their results in December/January.
2-1, 2-1, 4-0, 4-1, 4-0, 1-0, 0-0, 3-1, 3-4, 3-1. Eight wins, one draw, one defeat, 26 goals scored, 8 conceded. If that's a struggle, well, I'd take a struggle like that any time.
Also, the idea that "the tough wins" bring you the title is rubbish. Getting a lot of points is how you win the title and you're more likely to get a lot of points if you play well most of the time and trash some teams. If you're forced to grind against absolutely everyone, you won't win a title.
You could argue that Leeds was our only really convincing performance when we swept a team away. Last nights has been in the post for many weeks, and this form is worrying going into the next 3 really tough games. I bet we don't pick up more than 1 point in those 3 games (happy to be proved wrong, but I'm sure I won't).
The Leipzig & Leeds games are over stated. The Leipzig game we were outplayed in the first half & then they played into our hands in the 2nd & we countered the shit out of them. The Leeds game we defended terribly & could have honestly conceded 4 or 5 goals easily.
Our only true complete performance this season where we looked like a force was Everton away in the Carabao Cup. Our best performance by a clear mile.