Liverpool.
Chelsea.
City.
Chelsea.
City.
PL Title Race
- Thread starter adexkola
- Start date
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
I still think the likes of Liverpool with the afcon will drop points, city will as well without a striker, Chelsea’s luck will run out to, I think their all drop points in December, I expect united to go on a decent run, I know people will think that’s mental, it’s clear the club aren’t sacking ole as they have no replacement they want until the end of the season, I see us going on a run now, he still needs to go at the end of the season no matter what though, but he isn’t going anywhere unfortunely anytime soon
Well my preseason prediction was United being title winners. That looks like it's gone out of the window. I think I had Chelsea second, City third and Liverpool fourth.
Liverpool, when they're on form, look like the best attacking force in the country. They're pretty unstoppable when they're in the mood, but their defensive frailties have been a big problem for them. City look very methodical, and quite scary actually the way they can suffocate teams into submission. They've failed to score in 7 games so far though, so maybe that's something that could trip them up one too many times. Chelsea aren't the scary attacking force Liverpool are, nor are we as stingy in defence as City, judging by the underlying metrics, but I think we're in the gap in between both teams. Essentially we're the Reece James in the James/Trent/AWB debate.
Liverpool, when they're on form, look like the best attacking force in the country. They're pretty unstoppable when they're in the mood, but their defensive frailties have been a big problem for them. City look very methodical, and quite scary actually the way they can suffocate teams into submission. They've failed to score in 7 games so far though, so maybe that's something that could trip them up one too many times. Chelsea aren't the scary attacking force Liverpool are, nor are we as stingy in defence as City, judging by the underlying metrics, but I think we're in the gap in between both teams. Essentially we're the Reece James in the James/Trent/AWB debate.
City will buy a striker in Jan. They'll buy the right one, too. Their's to lose.
What underlying metrics? We've conceded 2 less goals than them, that seems like pretty much the only metric that matters.
XG of course. Chelsea has scored 5 goals more than their xG, and conceded 6 fewer. You've been very good, but you're still overperforming with the xG so far this season.
1. Chelsea
2. City
3. Liverpool
Liverpool are shaky. They are deadly, but they're really pushed far by Klopp himself. They don't really have the best of squads. Chelsea are amazing, both in defense and offence. Ruthlessly efficient. They'll win unless some massive collapse happens. City are very dangerous and outplay every team, but the lack of striking is severely hampering them. I can't see them winning the league with that kind of finishing.
2. City
3. Liverpool
Liverpool are shaky. They are deadly, but they're really pushed far by Klopp himself. They don't really have the best of squads. Chelsea are amazing, both in defense and offence. Ruthlessly efficient. They'll win unless some massive collapse happens. City are very dangerous and outplay every team, but the lack of striking is severely hampering them. I can't see them winning the league with that kind of finishing.
I still expect City to go on a 10-12 game winning run at some point and pull ahead of the rest. They have the most solid foundations and depth overall.
I'm probably just old fashioned, but I still consider stats like 'the ball actually going in the net' to be more relevant than anything else.
What BosnianRed said. It doesn't necessarily mean we'll suddenly fall away as we regress to the mean, but we are scoring more and conceding less than our xg/xgc, some of that has to do with Mendy being great, some of that is just pure luck (Brentford squandering easy chances,, hitting the post twice etc). City on the other hand are barely giving up any chances at all. If the current metrics stay as they are for the next 10 games, City will most likely have the best defensive record in the league. Chelsea can fix it though. We've had a lot of rotation in defence and midfield, especially as we've gone in and out international breaks.
Think the interesting thing from Chelsea's POV is that they still have to properly integrate Lukaku into the team once he returns from injury. Whereas Liverpool/City are probably more predictable in terms of how they'll continue to perform.
Nice thing about stats is that you can actually test them. Wanna guess which of xG/xGA or real goals/goals conceded has higher predictive power?
Of course it's more relevant, it puts points on the table. But stats like xG are used for trends. If you over perform to what your actual game is over a period of time, you'll eventually regress down to the mean and start underperforming for a period. Arsenal have been awful this season but they're on a good run. They're not a good team suddenly, they're still really poor with all underlying stats. Their run will end and they'll go back to being shit. United as bad as we've been, are still overperforming our xG for the season, which says a lot.
All xG says is how effective a team is at creating quality chances and keeping the opposition to low quality chances. Naturally, that will lead to better results, or if you fail at it, to worse results, even if the actual finishing/goalkeeping is skewing numbers for a small period.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Imagine West Ham doing it.
After that weekend I really believe there's a good chance that City will win the league. Chelsea are scoring such a high percentage of goals from guys like Chilwell and James, and Mendy is saving so many shots, which I'm not sure is sustainable. We aren't scoring enough which is a worry but we've been to Old Trafford, the King Power and Stamford Bridge and been dominant force in all three (and more than held our own at Anfield).
Squad depth will be key I think. We won't miss Mahrez at AFCON either while I imagine Mané, Mendy and Salah will be sorely missed. We can go on a good run over December-January and pull away if results elsewhere go our way.
I'm not exactly confident, no lifelong City fan would ever count their chickens before they hatch, but I think there's a chance now that both Liverpool and Chelsea have shown that they're also vulnerable to dropping points.
Squad depth will be key I think. We won't miss Mahrez at AFCON either while I imagine Mané, Mendy and Salah will be sorely missed. We can go on a good run over December-January and pull away if results elsewhere go our way.
I'm not exactly confident, no lifelong City fan would ever count their chickens before they hatch, but I think there's a chance now that both Liverpool and Chelsea have shown that they're also vulnerable to dropping points.
I haven't checked but I'd guess our xg has been higher since Lukaku has been injured. On the eye test alone, we were less creative with him in the team than we've been in his absence. The schedule has helped some of that of course.
You'd expect that though. He's a pure goalscorer, not a creative player. Sure we're going to make more chances without him because there's an extra creator in the side, but then we get back to last seasons problem of not having people actually finishing enough of those chances.
Still see top four as:
Chelsea, City, Pool, United* in any order. United least likely to win obviously as it stands.
*if we replace Ole before Watford.
Chelsea, City, Pool, United* in any order. United least likely to win obviously as it stands.
*if we replace Ole before Watford.
Things like that don’t happen in football!
There are no things which dont happen in football.
Reckon this is going to be the ultimate missed opportunity. Reckon it will be the lowest total required to win the league for a while. And we probably won't make top 4.
Chelsea, If I were betting on it
If it wasn't for the AFCON then I'd say Liverpool, but being without Salah & Mane might give them a dent, and we've also seen that they cannot afford any injuries like last season.
City & Chelsea both have superb squad depth, but both look beatable and likely to drop unexpected points on off days.
I'm still predicting
Liverpool
City
Chelsea
Spurs
In that order.
City & Chelsea both have superb squad depth, but both look beatable and likely to drop unexpected points on off days.
I'm still predicting
Liverpool
City
Chelsea
Spurs
In that order.
City unfortunately. We'll have kick started their annual winter run of wins as well.
That's precisely the conundrum Chelsea have. Lukaku was feeding off scraps before he got injured and initially he was really good at putting away every half chance that fell to him, but the goals eventually dried up because we weren't creating enough, then suddenly with Havertz up top we're creating chance after chance. Tuchel needs to find a way for the team to be a little more creative with Lukaku in the team. That's the end goal.
But this problem, if we can call it that, was a concern some of us had when we were linked with Lukaku last summer.
I think Chelsea have the squad and manager to win it.
With the pandemic pretty much putting FFP on hold they just blew everyone out the water with there spending, that combined with a good managerial appointment means and a good crop of home grown players means they should be walking it the season.
City are missing a bit upfront and Liverpool don’t have the depth( plus I think there midfield isn’t much better than ours) so they will be 2 & 3
I hope we are 4th, but really the squad is so top heavy really dunno we could finish any where from 4-10 and I would have be surprised (and that’s whether Ole stays or leaves)
With the pandemic pretty much putting FFP on hold they just blew everyone out the water with there spending, that combined with a good managerial appointment means and a good crop of home grown players means they should be walking it the season.
City are missing a bit upfront and Liverpool don’t have the depth( plus I think there midfield isn’t much better than ours) so they will be 2 & 3
I hope we are 4th, but really the squad is so top heavy really dunno we could finish any where from 4-10 and I would have be surprised (and that’s whether Ole stays or leaves)
I still think Lukaku-Werner is the solution personally.
City have De Bruyne yet to kick in full gear. The likes of Mahrez and Sterling and Torres and Grealish haven't hit full form yet.
Liverpool can argue the same regarding Mane to a lesser extent.
It's still between City and Liverpool for me; I remain unconvinced by Chelsea. I think they've significantly overperformed so far, bar a handful of strong outings, and I imagine they'll stagnate at some point.
That being said, all 3 teams are looking beatable on any given day. I think whoever gets more than 80 points this year will be champions.
That being said, all 3 teams are looking beatable on any given day. I think whoever gets more than 80 points this year will be champions.
I think City will win it with Chelsea second. Chelsea may be able to push them all the way but they seem to still have the habit of not finishing off teams when on top. The Burnley game for instance should've been 3 or 4-1. City do seem to lack goals but their experience of winning the league with Pep will see them through in my opinion. Could see Chelsea doing well in the CL again however as they're so hard to score past.
Dippers aren't out of it totally but there are a few signs again that they're a bit fried again (which is typical with Klopp sides.) Last season they started off like a house on fire but then burned out (although injures were a big issue.) This season a similar pattern is emerging in my opinion which is consistent with last season and his latter Dortmund seasons. I think this is principally due to the lack of squad refreshes his squads have from one season to the next which means they get leggy quickly in the winter months. This is of particular concern now as most of the important players in this Dipper squad are in and around 30 which means they cannot recover quickly enough from one game to the next. Not writing them completely off but I think their last few performances could snowball into patchy consistency between Dec-March.
As for West Ham, I see them staying up in the top six which is quite the achievement. Not sure they'll secure 4th with Europa League and domestic cup commitments as one injury to Antonio and they're without a striker. Additionally, with Conte at Spuds now, Le Arse only having domestic football and Utd bound to have an upturn (this always has happened with Olé) I can see them reeled in through sheer number of games (they've not experience of European football and are a light squad.)
Dippers aren't out of it totally but there are a few signs again that they're a bit fried again (which is typical with Klopp sides.) Last season they started off like a house on fire but then burned out (although injures were a big issue.) This season a similar pattern is emerging in my opinion which is consistent with last season and his latter Dortmund seasons. I think this is principally due to the lack of squad refreshes his squads have from one season to the next which means they get leggy quickly in the winter months. This is of particular concern now as most of the important players in this Dipper squad are in and around 30 which means they cannot recover quickly enough from one game to the next. Not writing them completely off but I think their last few performances could snowball into patchy consistency between Dec-March.
As for West Ham, I see them staying up in the top six which is quite the achievement. Not sure they'll secure 4th with Europa League and domestic cup commitments as one injury to Antonio and they're without a striker. Additionally, with Conte at Spuds now, Le Arse only having domestic football and Utd bound to have an upturn (this always has happened with Olé) I can see them reeled in through sheer number of games (they've not experience of European football and are a light squad.)
They're already established players within the team who just need to find form though. They can improve them no doubt, but we already know how those players fit within the team so it's easier to make projections as to how their performances might continue, I think.
Whereas Lukaku is newly arrived at Chelsea and is a very different sort of striker to the ones they use without him (I think they started Havertz up front in his absence?). So there's more disruption upon his return, whether of the good kind or bad. They seemed to still be trying to bed him in when he got injured, so I find it harder to project ahead to how they'll actually look once he's up and running.
Blimey, Mane's already got 6 goals in the league this season!
I take your point though but not sure he can go up a level back to the heights he hit 2-3 years ago. If he does manage it though then Liverpool are a terrifying proposition.
It's funny that this bugbear popped back up as soon as Lukaku went down - think there's a lot of truth in what you've posted here but it's also why we bought Lukaku. The irony is that we've been running him out against the bigger teams where he is probably a worse option and as soon as we need him against the likes of Burnley he's gone down.
That said, I'm interested to see how he fits back in - the tactical wrinkle Tuchel has been using in his absence has been positioning our wingbacks infield at times as auxiliary 10s. Having more bodies close to him can only suit Lukaku, I'd think, especially when Chilwell and James are willing runners in behind.
Yeah that makes sense.
He had a rotten start to the season, when did he get 6?
Right now, I'm really struggling to care. But allright, Liverpool. Or maybe Chelsea. Or who knows. No, I'm back to not caring.
He had a rotten start to the season, when did he get 6?
GW2 Burnley
GW4 Leeds
GW5 Palace
GW7 Man City
GW8 Watford
GW10 Brighton
I know what you mean though! He's gone under the radar a bit - definitely hasn't hit the heights of 18/19 & 19/20 when he had an argument to be best player in the league.
I do know he has his doubters on here but I rate Chelsea more in terms of attacking threat when Mount is in the side. The other AM playmakers (Ziyech, Pulisic) haven't been nearly as consistent or impactful.
That's because his default setting is to move the ball quickly. That's what Tuchel's football demands. Ziyech is the closest thing to Mount's processing speed. Barkley had a decent game the other day, but it's so visible the difference in how quickly he receives and moves the ball on compared to Mount.
Yeah Barkley is (and has always been) more of a dribbler/carrier than quick and incisive passer