Top 4 (let's hope top 5) race

Andycoleno9

snowflake obsessed matchday malcontent
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Catching 5th spot was never harder than this year. Liverpool, Arsenal and City will (probably) be there. Then you have Newcastle, Chelsea, Spurs, Villa and United whos goal is to be there. And then you have Brighton and NFO who have hopes based on current form. So, how confident are you about us finishing there?

My bet/hope is that top 5 will be;
Arsenal
Liverpool
City
Chelsea
United
 
Optimistic prediction, to say the least. I'm not expecting huge improvement under Amorim, the squad simply isn't good enough.

Liverpool
City
Arsenal
Chelsea
Tottenham
Newcastle
United

And if Brentford could fix the defense they could finish ahead of us as they scored almost twice as much goals as we did, not to mention Brighton, they look really good lately.
 
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1. Liverpool (They will win it by Xmas)
2. Chelsea
3. Arsenal
4. Manchester City (they will continue to explode)
5. Spuds
6. Newcastle
7. Manchester United (Next season top 4 we will get)
 
We have next to no chance of making it into the top 5 this season.

Liverpool, Arsenal, City, and Chelsea are already nailed-on to finish ahead of us. No chance one of those clubs finishes below us now.

That leaves us competing with Spurs, Newcastle, and Villa for 5th, at the very least. As of today I don't have hope that we can finish ahead of any of them. I think ultimately Spurs will definitely be ahead of us.

If we really get it together maybe we compete for 6th.
 
Nope, not happening. Best hope of Champions League is to keep plodding along in the Europa and hope that Spurs have one of their bad days somewhere along the line.
 
It’s still way too early to predict anything. Liverpool aside, every team is vulnerable this season. In 6 games time a lot could look different and we still will be only halfway into the season.
 
Does 5th guarantee a CL spot? Or does it depend on how English teams perform in Europe this season?
 
DRJosh said:
Does 5th guarantee a CL spot? Or does it depend on how English teams perform in Europe this season?
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Best two leagues (in Europe competitions) get one extra spot. Last year Italy and Germany got it.
 
Still not even December. The fight for these places is usually quite pathetic, so there's still plenty of hope if we can improve and get some sort of form going.
 
DRJosh said:
Does 5th guarantee a CL spot? Or does it depend on how English teams perform in Europe this season?
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It does depend. Opta gave the PL 72% chance of getting 5 spots when they did their calculations in September.
 
It's very much all to play for.

As bad as we've been this season we are only 7 points off second and 6 points off third!

We will improve under Amorim, but it depends how quickly and how consistently we can start picking up points.

Injuries will obviously be a big factor. I think Spurs losing Vicario and having Fraser Forster in goal for the foreseeable future will seriously hurt them.

The tricky thing for us is that we've had a relatively easy start. Our next six away games in the Premier League are Arsenal, City, Wolves, Liverpool, Fulham and Spurs. It's difficult to see us picking up many points from those games.
 
I think 5th is definitely up for grabs and is probably between us, Chelsea and Tottenham. Not seeing Newcastle as a side this year ready to compete for European places.

And I do think with how the European competitions have gone so far, England will get a 5th spot.
 
So we have a Europa League game on Thursday, 30th of January, 2025 away to a Romanian Club FCSB at 2100, and a premier league game on Saturday, February 01, 2025 at 1600 against palace. How ridiculous it can get…
 
Moiraine said:
So we have a Europa League game on Thursday, 30th of January, 2025 away to a Romanian Club FCSB at 2100, and a premier league game on Saturday, February 01, 2025 at 1600 against palace. How ridiculous it can get…
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Calm down, it will be moved to the Sunday.
 
I do think this is the overall strongest that the PL has been in a long time. Liverpool is the best team in the world on current form, with Arsenal top 5 as well. City is clearly slumping but still has a top manager and talent and will turn at some point even if they aren't at the top anymore. Chelsea is extremly dangerous as well and has a load of talent in that squad and I'd probably back them over any other 3rd place team in another league. And then you have Brighton/Spurs/Villa/United behind that very strong top 4.

I mean even fecking Ipswich has some very dangerous players and is a well coached side and they are in the relegation zone. Just goes to show how much of a difference the absurd influx of money the past 20 years makes for the strength of a league.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
I do think this is the overall strongest that the PL has been in a long time. Liverpool is the best team in the world on current form, with Arsenal top 5 as well. City is clearly slumping but still has a top manager and talent and will turn at some point even if they aren't at the top anymore. Chelsea is extremly dangerous as well and has a load of talent in that squad and I'd probably back them over any other 3rd place team in another league. And then you have Brighton/Spurs/Villa/United behind that very strong top 4.

I mean even fecking Ipswich has some very dangerous players and is a well coached side and they are in the relegation zone. Just goes to show how much of a difference the absurd influx of money the past 20 years makes for the strength of a league.
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The premier league has never been as strong, all the sides in the league are stacked with internationals and the level & competitiveness is currently 2nd to none. No other league currently comes close. From a Dutch perspective it even sounds a bit silly to suggest otherwise, there’s not even a argument in Holland which country had the strongest league. And the most money of course.
 
Caf posters have always been so embarrassing at declaring a season as over and hopeless following a couple of defeats before the clock has even turned back.

A lot of football to be played and we can finish in the top 4 and certainly top 5. A couple of decisions and luck here and there and we would already be well in it without needing to have played any better than we have done so far.
 
Top 4 still up for grabs but will need to get into a habit of winning games you are expected to win. After a good win away to Man City it's important to back that win up with another at home to Bournemouth this Sunday.

 
always_hoping said:
Top 4 still up for grabs but will need to get into a habit of winning games you are expected to win. After a good win away to Man City it's important to back that win up with another at home to Bournemouth this Sunday.

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It's incredibly doable if we can just manage to go on even a bit of a run, and then as you say put away the opponents we should. Problem is we've still so many untrustworthy players in the squad, which the Spurs first half yesterday illustrated.
 
Think there's a good chance we finish 5th. Win our next 3 league games before the Anfield match (Bournemouth, Wolves, newcastle) and I'd guess we'll be top 5.
 
Shark said:
It's incredibly doable if we can just manage to go on even a bit of a run, and then as you say put away the opponents we should. Problem is we've still so many untrustworthy players in the squad, which the Spurs first half yesterday illustrated.
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True about the untrustworthy players and Ruben I can imagine will continue to strongly rotate his team while trying to find out what is the strongest 11.

United haven't won back to back games in the Premier League this season a stat that needs to change on Sunday
 
1º Arsenal
2º Liverpool
3º Chelsea
4º Manchester United
5º Tottenham
6º Aston Villa

20º Man City relegated :cool:
 
If you go back a decade, the club that finishes fifth will lose anywhere from 9 to 13 matches.

Can we get through the final 22 league matches managing to lose only 7 more at most, or as little as 3 more?
 
Todd said:
If you go back a decade, the club that finishes fifth will lose anywhere from 9 to 13 matches.

Can we get through the final 22 league matches managing to lose only 7 more at most, or as little as 3 more?
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Probably not, BUT, some of our losses (Brighton, West Ham) were very unlucky. So I’d say, with law of average and all that, we’ll be avoiding some close losses down the line to balance it out. Realistically, though, I think we’ll end up way outside of Top 4/5 this year, and hope for the best in the Europa League for a CL spot next year.
 
Leão said:
1º Arsenal
2º Liverpool
3º Chelsea
4º Manchester United
5º Tottenham
6º Aston Villa

20º Man City relegated :cool:
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sort of sucks the season they after terrible would be the one they get relegated as opposed to the times they win the league! Also why degrees after the number. I sort of like that. Hey, we are 1st degree in the league
 
Oh, feck. I forgot that City will (probably) get some sort of point deduction. Yeah, we are in top 5 this year.
 
Biggest issue with predicting where we finish is just the pure lack of quality we have in the final third. Amad is class but that's about it, apart from him you're relying on Bruno (good creator but spotty goalscorer), Hojlund, Garnacho, Zirkzee, and maybe Rashford when none of them are very reliable week to week in terms of performances AND production. And then our auxilliary goal threats are basically non existent. We don't score from corners and set pieces pretty much ever, our wingbacks aren't going to contribute much of anything, and Ugarte/Mainoo aren't producers either (and it's not really their job in this system tbf).

So yeah, if we can have a few guys catch fire then we have an outside shot at top 4. Otherwise I'd guess 6-7th is probably where we slot in.
 
chris123 said:
I think 5th is definitely up for grabs and is probably between us, Chelsea and Tottenham. Not seeing Newcastle as a side this year ready to compete for European places.

And I do think with how the European competitions have gone so far, England will get a 5th spot.
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Agreed. We need to string together a few wins and 5th place is ours.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Biggest issue with predicting where we finish is just the pure lack of quality we have in the final third. Amad is class but that's about it, apart from him you're relying on Bruno (good creator but spotty goalscorer), Hojlund, Garnacho, Zirkzee, and maybe Rashford when none of them are very reliable week to week in terms of performances AND production. And then our auxilliary goal threats are basically non existent. We don't score from corners and set pieces pretty much ever, our wingbacks aren't going to contribute much of anything, and Ugarte/Mainoo aren't producers either (and it's not really their job in this system tbf).

So yeah, if we can have a few guys catch fire then we have an outside shot at top 4. Otherwise I'd guess 6-7th is probably where we slot in.
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My concern as well. Some signings in January to strengthen the starting XI are a must to finish top 5. Otherwise 7-12th.
 
I almost agree that we won't finish top 4 but Amorim has given us some hope. If it is ETH, I think we will finish 8 and below. With Amorim, we will finish 8 and above. You can seen that we have beaten City and narrowly beaten by Spurs, Arsenal only win because of set pieces. We can take points off Liverpool, Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Villa, Spurs when we face them who knows where we will finish. I think if the players start believing and play with heart and soul, their beliefs will bring positive results and we will finish top 5. I truly believe it is possible.
 
Get a run of 4-5 games and we'd be up there. Five from the next six are all winnable and I expect a much better performance & a draw at Liverpool.

I read somewhere that the PL has a ~98% chance of getting the 5th spot this season. Is that true?
 
For us to finish anywhere near top 4 we will have to drastically improve and our attacking players are going to have to start converting half chances.
As far as I know we have no money for transfers and no club is going to buy Marcus in January.
 
It's almost certainly not going to happen. Not unless we significantly strengthen our attacking options in January
 
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