The Community
General Category => Sports => Topic started by: KiloDeltaCharlie on August 15, 2023, 12:14:10 PM
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The season started up this last weekend, with things going very much as expected. Wins for Newcastle, Brighton, Man City, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Man Utd. Others expected to be in the running - Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool - all drew.
It's really too early to make any predictions but Newcastle and Brighton both had great wins.
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I'm trying to keep up with this as much as possible this year eventhough I can't see any matches.
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Spurs are going to be an entertaining watch this season. I just hope Levy and the fans give Ange some time to bed his new attacking style of football. I think losing Kane does buy him a bit more time though. Brentford are hard to beat at home so was happy with a draw even though Spurs dominated and the penalty to Brentford was as soft as they get. The new GK Vicario is already making me nervous and still not sure Richarlison is gonna cut it up front. Still need to sign another striker and centre back. Van De Ven looks a great signing. He’s a tall CB and has got some wheels on him which is exactly what we needed.
Newcastle has made some really good signings and were super impressive against Villa who are also tipped to be a top 6 team.
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A bit of a blip for Ange and Spurs last night losing a League cup game away to Fulham on penalties. Bit of a Mickey Mouse trophy but given the lack of trophies for Spurs in the last 20+ years you’ll take any trophy they can get.
Ange ball has been all the rage in England with Spurs great start to the season and Ange’s entertaining, straight up no nonsense style pressers and after match interviews, but he erred big time last night making 9 changes from the weekends win over Bournemouth and basically playing his 2nd team against a fellow premier league team.
Honestly haven’t seen so much love for a manager in such a short amount of time. The comments on this video are quite astounding. Fans can turn pretty quick though if things start to go south
“I’ve dodged having a real job all my life and long may it continue” ;D
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A lot of top teams treat the League Cup as an inconvenience and use it to give some lesser players a run out. They don't treat it with any sort of respect until it looks like they are in with a chance of winning it because, as you say, it is silverware!
Back to the league, and after 3 games the usual suspects are at the top of the league and the usual suspects are at the bottom! The only teams out of place seem to be West Ham (near the top) and Newcastle (towards the bottom). Glad to see that Everton have continued their fine form from last season :D !
I should add that Spurs have looked good so far, Liverpool have rode their luck and Man City despite having 3 wins from 3 haven't looked that great!
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6 games in and while it's too soon to pick winners and losers some things are becoming clearer...
... of the "Big 6" teams 4 are in the mix, are unbeaten and will think they've made a good start. They are
1 Man City Pld 6 on 18pts
2 Liverpool Pld 6 on 16pts
4 Tottenham Pld 6 on 14pts
5 Arsenal Pld 6 on 14 pts
... Man Utd won't be happy with 9pts in 9th place but are still in touch. But Chelsea are once again floundering with just 1 win in 14th and 5pts. And they spent a fortune in the summer on new players!
In 3rd place are Brighton (15pts) and playing some of the best football in the league, and no one thinks their position flatters them.
At the other end of the table it's already looking bleak for Sheffield Utd, Burnley and Luton (1pt each) but Bournemouth, Wolves and Everton (Yay!) are not doing well either.
Other thoughts are that despite being unbeaten Man City don't seem to be entirely the unbeatable force they were last year, and Liverpool seems to have rode their luck a little... they play poorly in the 1st half, get a bollocking from Klopp at half time and then play great in the 2nd half!
Tottenham look good and might even have benefitted from losing Harry Kane.
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Could this be the Hotspurs' year?
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^^^
I can see them finishing Top 4 and might even win one of the cup competitions.
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Excited with what’s happening at Spurs under Big Ange this season. He has totally transformed and galvanised the club in such a short amount time. Still early days but given where Spurs were at and losing their greatest ever goal scorer in the transfer window it’s actually quite remarkable what he’s been able to do. Spurs fans seem absolutely besotted with him and love the way he talks in media conferences.
Another big test against Liverpool this weekend who have become Spurs bogey team in recent years but if they can get a result they have a bunch of soft games coming up which could really set up their season.
COYS
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And the Spurs go marching on…
Top of the league 5 points clear with the rest of the round to play out. Obviously still early days with only 10 games down but I don’t think anyone would’ve thought Spurs would be top of the league unbeaten after 10 games, especially when Kane left a week before the season started.
Big Ange getting it done at Tottenham :)
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Spurs are doing fine, I think they're a little more resilient than in recent years. They've won a couple of games when in the past they may have drawn. But they really shouldn't have struggled to beat Liverpool when they were down to 9 men!
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I think they’ve won a couple of games they would’ve dropped in recent years. As for the Liverpool game. Teams can be a lot harder to break down when they go a man down or even two. Especially a team as well drilled as Liverpool. They pretty much had every player in their own penalty box giving Spurs no room to create a goal and blocking every shot they got off. Hence the own goal at the end.
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^^^
That certainly can happen when a team loses a player.
Back to this weekends results (with the Manchester derby still in progress), it looks like the usual suspects are generally rising to the top.
Top 4 are Spurs, Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool. Closely followed by Aston Villa, Newcastle and Brighton 3 teams expected to be in the race for European places.
No sign of Chelsea or Manchester Utd despite signs of recovery in recent weeks.
At the bottom Sheffield Utd are beginning to be cast adrift from the the rest.
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On a personal note, my local team -- Portsmouth -- who are in the 3rd tier of English football are currently pulling out a small gap at the top of the league. They are unbeaten since March and are 6 points clear of their nearest rivals (Oxford Utd and Bolton) but those teams have a game in hand.
EDIT: Manchester City went on to easily beat Manchester Utd 0-3!
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Not a good weekend for the Premier Leagues two unbeaten teams... there are now no unbeaten teams!!
Arsenal lost by a controversial goal to Newcastle (VAR is under fire yet again!).
Spurs lost their unbeaten start to the season by doing a Liverpool and having 2 players sent off inside the first hour. Chelsea then romped home 1-4.
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Everyone has played 16 games now and naturally things are starting to take shape.
The top 4 are
Pts
37 Liverpool (doing great, but I still feel they are riding their luck)
36 Arsenal (doing fine, lost at Aston Villa this past weekend)
35 Aston Villa (on a tremendous run, Geezer will be overjoyed)
33 Manchester City (had a horrible run recently, Saturday saw their first win in 5 games)
In 5th we have Tottenham on 30 pts who have been dreadful for a few weeks but came good at the weekend with a 4-0 win over Newcastle.
Manchester Utd, Newcastle and Brighton follow but all inconsistent. Injuries have certainly affected Newcastle and Brighton in recent weeks.
At the bottom of the table those looking at relegation are:
Pts
9 Luton
8 Burnley
8 Sheffield Utd
Everton were briefly thrown in to the bottom 3 when they had a 10pt deduction for financial irregularities, but sadly they've recovered with 3 wins on the bounce and are clear of these three! :(
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Looking at Liverpool's schedule and results thus far, I'd agree with you. No real challenge wins in there, and some concerning draws with bottom-tier teams that should have been wins. They had a chance to show strength vs Tottenham, but got a loss there. They're about to go into a stretch where they see Arsenal 3 times, so they need to step up to that challenge to prove they can do more than beat middling or poor teams.
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The only thing that really hits me with that is the fact that Aston Villa is in 3rd! They've usually been on the bottom end of the list....but quite often there is one weaker team that gets a good run....which usually ends before the season is done.
City seems to be on the decline this season...not surprised by that really...I think they've been getting more and more cocky over the years...time for them to get a step down.
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Most teams have played 20 games now. It's the new year and the top 5 seem to be pulling away from the pack (although a good run could see the chasers close the gap.
Top 5
Pts
45 Liverpool (Still doing well, but will lose Salah for African Cup in January)
42 Aston Villa (still over performing I think)
40 Man City (They have a game in hand, but recovered a little from a recent wobble but missing De Bruyne amd Haarland)
40 Arsenal (Big slump, losing 3 of their last 5 games)
39 Spurs (on a really good run but still prone to slip ups)
We then have West Ham on 34pts, Brighton and Man Utd on 31pts. Man Utd are in the midst of a poor streak.
No change at the bottom of the table except that Luton are closer to the pack than they were.
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Jurgen Klopp is stepping down as Liverpools manager at the end of the season. Possibly only second to Bob Paisley on the list of greatest Liverpool managers. It gives them time to select a suitable replacement, Steven Gerrard might be the obvious choice if he's able to.
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Saw some moaning from Liverpool fans on a sports Discord channel I'm on. They were hating on Gerrard as a replacement.
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Gerrard has blotted his reputation somewhat. He did well at Rangers, started okay at Aston Villa before everything went crap and now he's sold his soul to the Saudis... but I do believe he is destined to manage Liverpool at some point.
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The Premiere League finished this past weekend. In some ways it was a classic, 3 teams were in it until the last few matches when Liverpool had a blip in form, but on the last day it could have gone to Arsenal or Manchester City but Arsenal needed Man City to at best draw for them to win. They both won so Manchester City took the title for the 4th year running (yawn!).
Liverpool finished 3rd and Aston Villa rounded out the Champions League spots in 4th. Tottenham got the Europa League spot in 5th with Chelsea possibly joining them in 6th (After a ghastly first half of the season they had a really good finish).
Relegated were the 3 teams who came up last season. Sheffield Utd, Burnley and Luton, but again results on the last could have seen Luton stay up at the expense of Nottingham Forest. Sheffield Utd have the dubious honour of being the first Premiere League team to concede 100+ goals although they did manage to beat the lowest ever points total.
Replacing those 3 are Leicester and Ipswich with the 3rd place to be decided this weekend with play-offs final between Leeds and Southampton (come on Leeds!!).
On a personal note my local team Portsmouth were promoted as Champions into the 2nd tier.
The only game still to play (other than the play-iff final) is the FA Cup final this weekend between Manchester's Utd and City.
We already have managers leaving their posts: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool) was announced months ago and his replacement has been announced as Arne Slot (I've never heard of him!). David Moyes (West Ham) we knew was going a few games ago. Roberto de Zerbi (Brighton) announced he was leaving this past weekend. Then today Mauricio Pochettino parted ways with Chelsea despite their good recent form. Lastly, Burnley's Vincent Kompany has been linked (among others) with the vacant post at Bayern Munich.
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City has had an incredible run the last few years...
Aston Villa got 4th? That's quite surprisingly well done...they haven't been that close to the top in quite some time have they?
I read about Klopp leaving some while ago indeed. Arne Slot? Who?
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City have won 6 of the last 7 seasons! It gets boring!
Geezer will be happy with Villa's progress. :)
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A new Premiership Season is upon us. This being the third weekend of matches, and all teams have played 3 games....
Meet the new league, same as the old league (to plagiarise The Who)! Two teams have maximum points Manchester City and Liverpool with Arsenal, Brighton and Newcastle hot on their heels!
It's nice to see Everton and Southampton propping up the table... long may that continue!