We are 2nd in the league and deserve to be there. Agree?

I think we deserve to be exactly where we are, 1 point ahead of 3rd place. Just about in 2nd.

And some of our rivals, other than Leicester doing a lot more poorly than anticipated at the start of the season so they certainly dont deserve to be ahead of us
 
Don’t know about others but I’m still quite vary of finishing in the top 4. If anyone gave me 4th right now, I’ll take it. The teams below us are really close and with fixture congestion coming into play, I really feel this could be the year at least one of Leicester, Everton and West Ham could make the breakthrough.

With Chelsea doing reasonably well under Tuchel and Liverpool generally being good enough to make the top 4 comfortably, I feel that there is a lot of scope for us to bottle it.

Hence, please forgive me if I don’t feel joyous with us sitting in 2nd 12 points behind the league leaders and 1 ahead of Leicester.
 
Of course we deserve to be there and are the 2nd best team for now.

But that doesn't necessarily imply we are a top team playing amazing football. To be honest, multiple teams are either massively underperforming/ or not living up to their potential. some of our rivals are just bad. Chelsea bought so many players and might have to integrate them first, Tottenham is just a bad team under a washed up coach with boring tactics. Arsenal is Arsenal.

If we end up 2nd place at the end of the season then we are the 2nd best team and also deserve it. But if we are honest, being 2nd in the PL doesn't necessarily mean that we are a top team. Again, I don't remember more than 5/6 games where we looked like a good team.
I think we are still "bad", but many are just worse. On top of that we didn't make it out of the CL group stage-

Anyone else agree that last season performance of the 2nd half > our performance this season ? Definitely more stability in the defence.
And although we scored more goals this season, it doesn't feel like our attacking football became better.

Still a long road ahead, I hope we can add some top players next season.
 
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yeah I think we deserve to be where we be....

we have been sloppy at times (Everton/Leicester/West Brom), uninspiring (Sheffield United/Arsenal/West Brom), failed to rise to the occasion (Chelsea/Liverpool) but we've been largely very good

we've been unlucky with referee decisions especially in games like Sheffield United, West Brom and Chelsea too

It's plugging that gap to City which will be the big challenge and I sadly think it's a 300m problem - The Glazers might spend that over the next 4 years.
 
We are also second in the league since Bruno signed, so that's 1 year now, around 37 league games.

We deserve to be in 2nd position, at least for now.
 
I think Liverpool and Chelsea are underachieving based on xG parameters, but I don't watch them play. Number of points we've taken so far is a fair representation of our form. We've been a bit lucky in some games, but can't help this feeling we've been somewhat robbed by refs bizarre decisions lately (Maguire foul on GK, no foul on Lindelof, no penalty vs Chelsea).

We've been fairly lucky with no injuries, especially to defensive line.
 
We are but Liverpool will get better after VVD returns, and Chelsea should get better under Tuchel too, so basically if we stay in the same place we are not likely to be higher than 4th next season anyway. It's still a significant progress, we will probably finish around 70 points mark and if things go fine we will not need a late surge to make top 4. We are probably 2-3 players away from being proper title candidates and a team that can go far in the Champions League.
 
UDontMessWith24 said:
The only position Leicester wouldn’t swap with us is center back after they robbed us blind. Soyoncu and Fofana together cost less than Maguire.
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Nonsense. They have a better goalie, better central midfielders in Ndidi and Tielemans, a better striker in Vardy. Potentially a better right back in James Justin. Together with the center backs that is over half the team. I am not even including Madison and Barnes in that. They have been ravaged by injuries this year.
If anything, it is marginal about who has the better squad and as I said, I don’t believe that they would want to swap theirs for ours.
 
Going on our last performance = Chelsea away from home. Player for player we've come a long way imo. I'm not going on stats but if you look at each player then it would be true to say there has been a significant improvement re the players who play regularly.
In reality I believe we have 2 players who have not improved since last season.
DDG and Martial
Greenwood has maybe stagnated a little.
With that sort of development it is obviously going to reap benefits. Against Chelsea, for example, apart from bottling it in the final 3rd we were spot on in almost every dept. We could have easily won that game and it's not Sheff utd we're up against.
Squadwise maybe not as clear cut but as a team we are next after city, no doubt about that.
 
nokillingmoths said:
You reckon we're better than Liverpool if they weren't ravaged by injuries?

I'd say we have the third/ fourth best squad behind city and liverpool. We're on a par with Chelsea who had an awful manager earlier in the season.

I think we've made the most of Liverpools injuries but we still have a long way to go and I would expect Liverpool to be above us quite comfortably next season if they don't suffer another injury crisis like they have this season.

Having said that I think we are doing well. Overall there is progress from last season but I do think we have been poor v the big sides in the league. That is a clear step back from last year.
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Liverpool have been found out I reckon- largely average squad with no depth.
 
2nd or 3rd. If we can finish 2nd that would be progress. The next progress for next season will be to be a far more dangerous team, right now we havent really frightened anyone and have got through with a mixture of good fortune in some games, good play in other games and force of will in the rest.
 
Yes, table does't lie and we just about deserve to be there....

Although in terms of strength the prem is actually in 4-5 mini leagues. The odd team will have a good / bad season but in general, it's this.

1.Man City
.
.
.
2-7 - Man Utd, Leicester, Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, Tottenham
8 - Arsenal
.
9-11 - Leeds, Wolves, West Ham, Villa
.
.
12-15 - Burnley, Palace, Southampton
16-20 -The rest.
 
Sarni said:
We are but Liverpool will get better after VVD returns, and Chelsea should get better under Tuchel too, so basically if we stay in the same place we are not likely to be higher than 4th next season anyway. It's still a significant progress, we will probably finish around 70 points mark and if things go fine we will not need a late surge to make top 4. We are probably 2-3 players away from being proper title candidates and a team that can go far in the Champions League.
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I agree with this. We have done about as well as I wanted at this stage while a couple of teams, Liverpool and Chelsea have underachieved.

I'm still pissed off that we didn't get Sancho last summer as I think our progress would have been even more impressive. I would also say that the gamble that was Tuanzebe did not pay off unfortunately.
 
Hughes35 said:
Yes, table does't lie and we just about deserve to be there....

Although in terms of strength the prem is actually in 4-5 mini leagues. The odd team will have a good / bad season but in general, it's this.

1.Man City
.
.
.
2-7 - Man Utd, Leicester, Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, Tottenham
8 - Arsenal
.
9-11 - Leeds, Wolves, West Ham, Villa
.
.
12-15 - Burnley, Palace, Southampton
16-20 -The rest.
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I would place Liverpool alongside or just behind City. Their season has been wrecked by injury, but they’ll be back.

With Utd and Chelsea clear of the rest.
 
Sarni said:
We are but Liverpool will get better after VVD returns, and Chelsea should get better under Tuchel too, so basically if we stay in the same place we are not likely to be higher than 4th next season anyway. It's still a significant progress, we will probably finish around 70 points mark and if things go fine we will not need a late surge to make top 4. We are probably 2-3 players away from being proper title candidates and a team that can go far in the Champions League.
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Its quite funny because this is what we heard last season too when we got top 4.

City and Liverpool will continue to dominate - City have but Liverpool have dropped massively.

Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea will all improve because of the Jose factor, Lampard getting signings and Arteta after winning the cup will push.

In fact out of those teams, we are the only ones who have actually improved. So what's not to say we won't improve again next season with a few signings?
 
When will this place ever learn: never jump the gun. There are always threads like "Elite hipster CBs vs Maguire and Lindelof or We will win the league this season" etc. You guys are looking to jinx us aren't you, you clever Ole outers :D

We still have a 1/3 of the season to go and there are way too many variables. A couple of bad results or an injury to Bruno and we can end up outside the Top4. Let's not jump the gun here and leave discussions like these for the end of the season.
 
Narrowly second out of a weakish chasing pack in an overall strong league, way off the leaders. Seems exactly where we should be to me. It definitely represents progress, although it's disappointing that we've stumbled after a strong start to the winter. Not surprising given inevitable fatigue and a growing injury list though.
 
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Stack said:
2nd or 3rd. If we can finish 2nd that would be progress. The next progress for next season will be to be a far more dangerous team, right now we havent really frightened anyone and have got through with a mixture of good fortune in some games, good play in other games and force of will in the rest.
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You're wrong Rashford frightens the shit out of every team we meet!
 
Hansinity said:
Anyone else agree that last season performance of the 2nd half > our performance this season ?
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Yes, but we have to take into account that our post-restart form was aided by the team coming back from a long break from football, and we haven't really stopped playing since that point. Fatigue is a massive factor for all teams, so its not unexpected to see the overall 'quality' of play decrease.

For the same reason I suspect the Euros this summer will be a real stinker of a tournament in terms of quality of football.
 
Its so close that it could change after one or two results. We are a point above Leicester so how can we be comfortably better? Only City can say this as they are so far ahead.
 
Eire Red United said:
Liverpool have been found out I reckon- largely average squad with no depth.
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I wonder how we'd look if we had Maguire, Lindelof, Bailly and Tuanzebe out along with Cavani for large stretches of the season and had to play Matic and Mctominay at CB. We certainly wouldn't be second in the league.

To say Liverpool have been found out is a bit disingenuous IMO. A fully fit Liverpool team would not be 6th.
 
Zlatans Knee said:
Nonsense. They have a better goalie, better central midfielders in Ndidi and Tielemans, a better striker in Vardy. Potentially a better right back in James Justin. Together with the center backs that is over half the team. I am not even including Madison and Barnes in that. They have been ravaged by injuries this year.
If anything, it is marginal about who has the better squad and as I said, I don’t believe that they would want to swap theirs for ours.
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Pogba is better than Tielemans, and you might not want to include Madison unless you think he's better than Fernandes. Please join us back in reality.
 
UDontMessWith24 said:
Pogba is better than Tielemans, and you might not want to include Madison unless you think he's better than Fernandes. Please join us back in reality.
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Is this the Pogba that the majority of people on this forum wanted out of the club and are still undecided on his best position? And if you actually read what I wrote, I did not include Madison. I think I will give your reality a miss thanks very much.
 
Zlatans Knee said:
Is this the Pogba that the majority of people on this forum wanted out of the club and are still undecided on his best position? And if you actually read what I wrote, I did not include Madison. I think I will give your reality a miss thanks very much.
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You said you were leaving Madison out because of injuries but even if he was healthy all season long he's not better than Bruno, and who gives a feck what the "majority of the people on this forum think". Pogba is better than Tielemans period end of story.
 
UDontMessWith24 said:
You said you were leaving Madison out because of injuries but even if he was healthy all season long he's not better than Bruno, and who gives a feck what the "majority of the people on this forum think". Pogba is better than Tielemans period end of story.
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Sigh, this reading business is difficult for you isn't it? There is a full stop between my sentence about Madison and the one about injuries.
Also, just some little old things called facts for you...Tielemans has 6 goals and 2 assists in 26 appearances this season. Pogba has 4 goals and 2 assists in 28 appearances. Maybe you somehow think that Pogba has better defensive qualities than Tielemans. Or perhaps it is value for money you are talking about where I would imagine that his weekly salary is 3x Tielemans and he cost about 3x as much to buy as well.
But good point, well stated.
 
Zlatans Knee said:
Sigh, this reading business is difficult for you isn't it? There is a full stop between my sentence about Madison and the one about injuries.
Also, just some little old things called facts for you...Tielemans has 6 goals and 2 assists in 26 appearances this season. Pogba has 4 goals and 2 assists in 28 appearances. Maybe you somehow think that Pogba has better defensive qualities than Tielemans. Or perhaps it is value for money you are talking about where I would imagine that his weekly salary is 3x Tielemans and he cost about 3x as much to buy as well.
But good point, well stated.
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You were clearly referring to Madison and Barnes but anyway your credibility officially gone as you're arguing Tielemans is better than Pogba with a straight face. Maybe football isn't for you?
 
UDontMessWith24 said:
You were clearly referring to Madison and Barnes but anyway your credibility officially gone as you're arguing Tielemans is better than Pogba with a straight face. Maybe football isn't for you?
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Maybe reading isn’t for you? Your writing is not great either for that matter, so I think I will disregard your opinion about football as well.
 
2nd in the league, galaxies away from Man City in terms of teamplay, tactics and manager.

We should be aiming for the top spot, not settling for second best. That’s an Arsenal mentality towards the end of Wenger’s tenure.
 
reddevilz007 said:
2nd in the league, galaxies away from Man City in terms of teamplay, tactics and manager.

We should be aiming for the top spot, not settling for second best. That’s an Arsenal mentality towards the end of Wenger’s tenure.
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Unlike Arsenal, you guys actually have money to spend. You just need to figure out what to do with that money.
 
Yeh and we are 15 points behind the leader, which is about right too.
 
We "deserve" only because other teams below are even worse, not because we play well. Apart from Leeds and Southampton games, every game I can remember was a struggle. Our performances are not good enough and we are toothless against big sides. I think it's very likely Liverpool will get back to their best next season once their injured players come back, Chelsea can always do the unexpected and go on a title challenge and City will keep doing what they are doing. Out of those 3 I think we are the least likely to mount a serious title challenge and are the most likely to crash next season.
 
Are people forgetting being embarrassingly kicked out of Europe in the group stages?

Jose also finished 2nd with an embarrassing exit from Europe with a much worse squad.

I'm not praising Jose or anything, just pointing out 2nd is not much of an accomplishment and we are still way off.
 
Amir said:
When comparing to last season we should remember that we were crap until late January, when Fernandes joined, and much better afterwards, especially after lockdown.

Are we better than how we were until February 2020? Of course. Are we better compared with June and July 2020? I'd say no.
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Yeah I'd agree with this. It's almost hard to compare to last year given how the whole season was really poor, then excellent and then really poor again,
 
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