Erik Ten Hag may need at least 96 points to break the Pep/ Klopp duopoly, is that realistic?

fastwalker

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It looks certain that the winners of the 2021/22 season will achieve in excess of 90 points. If City and Liverpool win all of their remaining games they will finish on 97 and 96 points respectively. If so, it will be the fourth time in five years that the PL winners would have broken the 90 point margin and the second time that the first and second place finishers would have achieved 90 plus points. In fact in the last four years, the average points total for the PL winners has been 96 points. To put this is some sort of context, during his Premier League tenure (20 years), SAF achieved 90 points or more on just three occasions.

To put this into an even starker contrast, we are essentially asking Erik Ten Hag to do something, on a consistent basis, that SAF himself did not do.

Comparing the averages of the three best points scoring seasons for Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea shows that: Manchester United achieved 92 points in the 1993/94 season, 90 points in the 1999/00 season and 90 points in the 2008/09 season. Averaged out and rounded up this is 91 points. City meanwhile achieved 100 points in 2017/18, 98 points in 2018/19 and 89 points in 2011/12. Averaged out and rounded up this is 96 points. :Liverpool achieved 99 points in 2019/20, 97 points in 2018/19 and 86 points in 2008/09. Averaged up and rounded up this is 94 points. Chelsea achieved 95 points in 2004/05, 91 points in 2005/06 and 93 points in 2016/17 . Averaged out and rounded up this is 93 points.

To put it mildly, Erik Ten Hag has a massive job on his hands. Today the benchmark is not just to achieve a 90 point benchmark, but to do so again and again and again. With Klopp agreeing to extend his stay at Pool and Guardiola likely to do likewise at City, we can no longer hope for our improvement to be 'nudged' by the failure of our competitors.

To reach Pep and Klopp levels we are essentially asking that ETH deliver better points averages than SAF. All things considered, is this a realistic weight to place on his shoulders?
 
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All you can do is try I suppose? It's obviously achievable if they are doing it. With our financial power we should be going toe to toe with them under the right management.

Whether ETH will achieve it or not, we shall see. In theory over 100 points is possible.
 
The enormity of the task cannot be overstated, but we should confine ourselves to defining success as lifting major trophies, not exceeding points records.
 
The standard benchmark is only 90 plus points due to United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs not being at the heights they should be and the top two being far better than the rest.

This gap will close massively next season in my opinion, what with Arsenal being resurgent, Spurs potentially rebuilding under Conte, United having a massive rebuild and the emergence of West Ham and potentially Newcastle as force.

The points total to win the league will reduce to 85 plus either next season or the season after,
 
fastwalker said:
in excess of 90 pints
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Some heavy drinkers we have in the PL.

ETH may have a chance, being Dutch, but Klopps German, so that's massive competition.

"The Dutch drink, on average, 77 litres of beer per person per year, ranking them 14th in the world in terms of beer consumption."

Don't see it happening, unless Klopp's Liver(pool) starts failing.
 
I think this assumes these teams keep having these seasons and the chasing pack doesn't improve. Even if just United improve, these two teams won't be getting the same points.

I reckon we can win a league with 90.
 
If one team was getting 90+ points then sure, but two teams are. That means regardless of how you see it, the rest of the league is incredibly weak in comparison.

If other teams raise their game, the points will be spread more evenly and thus the points total to reach becomes smaller.
 
Liverpool and City have been at the absolute top of their game for the last 4 years. They won't stay at that level forever, even if they do have Klopp and Pep. They're great coaches, but not unbeatable or flawless. I remember feeling quite hopeless during Mourinho's first spell at Chelsea. I thought there was no way we were going to catch them. Then suddenly we did. Things change quickly in football.

It's not going to be a quick fix, and he might require a year or two to get there, but I do feel optimistic that Ten Hag can get us to a place where we're challenging Pep and Klopp yes.
 
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All we can do is our best. Klopp comes second on 90 odd points, but nobody accuses him of not being good enough - it’s clear he’s doing a great job.
 
SAF also didn‘t have the money to spend teams can spend nowadays.
If United had spent our money wisely since his retirement, we could have had a very good squad with very good players on the bench as well who we could rotate regularly.
But as with Tuchel, let us come close to 85-90 points first and we can then analyze what we need to do to close the remaining gap.
 
fastwalker said:
is this a realistic weight to place on his shoulders?
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Not realistic for next season.

The season after that, will depend on how ETH does & how the new signings perform and how the players inherited by ETH do.

Next season will be key in determining how soon can the team compete with City Liverpool
 
Its obvious if we do compete, fans will start to believe and I think thats what we need at the moment.

Go back to being competitive on a consistent basis. Over the past years, we've had good results and performances against big teams but its also followed by embarrassment, we need to cut that out.
 
Just some pedantic corrections:

If City and Liverpool win all their remaining games, they will finish on 95 and 94 points, respectively.

Manchester United got 92 points in 42 matches in 1993/94 season and 91 points in 38 matches in 1999/2000 season.

That's about it, actually.
 
What we want is ETH to finish above Liverpool and City, say 98 pts minimum (31 W; 5 D; 2 L)

Points totals tend to reflect consistency of producing winning performances
 
Champ said:
The standard benchmark is only 90 plus points due to United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs not being at the heights they should be and the top two being far better than the rest.

This gap will close massively next season in my opinion, what with Arsenal being resurgent, Spurs potentially rebuilding under Conte, United having a massive rebuild and the emergence of West Ham and potentially Newcastle as force.

The points total to win the league will reduce to 85 plus either next season or the season after,
Click to expand...

/Thread
 
No, this number will drop, as other teams get stronger and hire better managers.
There is only so much you can do with cash and eventually the difference between the bottom and the top will get smaller.

Im hoping we will begin to see it, I don't think its too far off.
 
He could just win it in one of the off seasons that they have?

I.e. 21/22
 
Champ said:
The standard benchmark is only 90 plus points due to United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs not being at the heights they should be and the top two being far better than the rest.

This gap will close massively next season in my opinion, what with Arsenal being resurgent, Spurs potentially rebuilding under Conte, United having a massive rebuild and the emergence of West Ham and potentially Newcastle as force.

The points total to win the league will reduce to 85 plus either next season or the season after,
Click to expand...

this

Lots of improving teams will make it more difficult for pool/city. It doesn't take away how good they are, it's just that the rest of the league is crap.
 
It is fairly unrealistic, but at this moment I would take not getting humiliated once a month.
 
I expect 90 points will be the target for another season or two and then even out. But that should be the aim.

Realistically next season ETH will be doing well to break 20 wins.
 
The quality of the league apart from the top 2 is the poorest I’ve seen in the premier league. Chelsea are good but flawed, as are the other top 6 but only far worse. I think once the other clubs catch up, you’ll see point totals for the league champions back at the historical levels we’ve seen before re: in the low to mid 80s.
 
Apart from 13-14, Liverpool were getting 50-odd or maybe low 60s in points for years before Klopp came in (and even in his first year). They were worse most years than we have been this year, which takes some fecking doing.

It's called not being shite anymore, and it's not actually impossible.
 
No. I hope nobody expects us to be anywhere near City and Pool next season because we won't be. We're competing with Chelsea and Arsenal to be the 3rd best team in England.
 
No. We aren't going to be anywhere near the title race for the foreseeable future. Not with Ten Hag, not with anyone else either.
 
Wow, I think I’ll balance out the pessimism in this thread with some optimism and realism.

To use a maxim used in the stocks and shares market, past performance is not a guide to future performance. All we can do is take it as the next season unfolds. I remember thinking back in 2006 as Chelsea dominate domestically and buying Shevchenko and Ballack, that there’s no fecking way we can beat them as our only purchase was Carrick.

Levels drop, Injuries happen, Players get older, Teams are figured out, Hungrier teams emerge etc.
 
I'd take just being regular top 4 for now. We're absolutely miles away from talking about challenging for titles.
 
If Liverpool can do it. Then why the feck should it be abnormal for united to do it?
 
Poster above has a good point. Once United, Arsenal and Spurs get better + Newcastle keep spending and Everton (if they stay up) start showing some pride again the points total needed to win will get lower. How many years was United a guaranteed 6 points for Liverpool or City in the past? Ditto for Arsenal. Also, Liverpool are aging. They may be able to continue the cycle, but they may not. Football is cyclical. Everybody thought that Barca would dominate Europe for years to come but couple of key players leave, and they aren't nearly as good.

Don't get me wrong, the job for ETH is massive. However, with time and resources, we can absolutely get back to the top. I 10000% believe it. Like RR said, 2-3 windows that go well and we'll be right back in it.
 
City and Liverpool will only continue to get that many points while teams go in against them expecting to be defeated (including us terribly this season).

We benefited from it in our glory days until Moyes came along and let the likes of Newcastle and WBA beat us at OT.

Hopefully the rest of the league will be braver and start taking more points of them soon.
 
Ask any sensible Liverpool fan 5 years ago if they’d be getting 90 plus points in a PL season any time soon and they’d have probably said no.

It’s very realistic if we get the recruitment right and Ten Hag does what he’s been hired to do
 
fastwalker said:
It looks certain that the winners of the 2021/22 season will achieve in excess of 90 points. If City and Liverpool win all of their remaining games they will finish on 97 and 96 points respectively. If so, it will be the fourth time in five years that the PL winners would have broken the 90 point margin and the second time that the first and second place finishers would have achieved 90 plus points. In fact in the last four years, the average points total for the PL winners has been 96 points. To put this is some sort of context, during his Premier League tenure (20 years), SAF achieved 90 points or more on just three occasions.

To put this into an even starker contrast, we are essentially asking Erik Ten Hag to do something, on a consistent basis, that SAF himself did not do.

Comparing the averages of the three best points scoring seasons for Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea shows that: Manchester United achieved 92 points in the 1993/94 season, 90 points in the 1999/00 season and 90 points in the 2008/09 season. Averaged out and rounded up this is 91 points. City meanwhile achieved 100 points in 2017/18, 98 points in 2018/19 and 89 points in 2011/12. Averaged out and rounded up this is 96 points. :Liverpool achieved 99 points in 2019/20, 97 points in 2018/19 and 86 points in 2008/09. Averaged up and rounded up this is 94 points. Chelsea achieved 95 points in 2004/05, 91 points in 2005/06 and 93 points in 2016/17 . Averaged out and rounded up this is 93 points.

To put it mildly, Erik Ten Hag has a massive job on his hands. Today the benchmark is not just to achieve a 90 point benchmark, but to do so again and again and again. With Klopp agreeing to extend his stay at Pool and Guardiola likely to do likewise at City, we can no longer hope for our improvement to be 'nudged' by the failure of our competitors.

To reach Pep and Klopp levels we are essentially asking that ETH deliver better points averages than SAF. All things considered, is this a realistic weight to place on his shoulders?
Click to expand...

Are we realistically asking from ETH to try to win the league in his first season? How deluded is that! That is exactly what's wrong with our past-SAF era perception of success and one of the reasons that caused us to end up in the situation we are currently.

As painful as it sounds, Man Utd is a broken team currently. We all know that a massive team building operation is needed to get us out off this hole we are in. The last thing we need is to fool ourselves with the idea that ETH will perform a miracle and we will immediately end up challenging City and Liverpool to the title.

Hopefully, if we manage get in the upwards trajectory in the following years due to all this mobilization, City and Liverpool will be in the downwards one, for the simple fact that they are at their peak now.
 
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