EPL 2023/2024
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Watched the first half this morning and Chelsea bossed it - they looked a lot more coherent in their structure and I noticed Cucurella (who I find hard to take seriously) was moving into midfield on attack as the title contenders tend to do and he actually looked a decent player there. Their press was causing Spurs problems as they tried to play out and the Spurs press was easily bypassed.
Wonder whether there will be a directive on blockers at free kicks and corners soon? Ben White's job is to harrass the keeper so he cannot compete for their inswinging corners and more and more, teams are coming up with routines where a player blocks off a defender so they cannot compete for the header.
Amazing number of injuries this season - too many fixtures? The first season I was aware of was 1969-70 and I was a Leeds fan (I liked the word and they were good). Found their season online and between 14 March and 4 April they played 10 games
Saturday - FA Cup Semi Final
Wednesday - European Cup Quarter Final Second Leg
Saturday - League Game
Monday - FA Cup Semi Final Replay
Thursday - FA Cup Semi Final Second Replay
Saturday - League Game
Monday - League Game
Wednesday - European Cup Semi Final First Leg
Thursday - League Game
Saturday - League GamePlayers these days don't know they're born. Leeds had a first team squad of 12 who all played over 40 games (out of 63 in total). 25 players played in total - but mainly because Leeds put out their reserve team when forced to play 8 games in 15 days.
I wonder what the kms run in a match would have been back then? I know they wouldn’t have been able to measure that but I imagine that it would be less. (Of course they were nowhere near the athletes that they are today!)
The game is more intense these days and there is more European games and more international games.
But you are right when you see those stats you wonder if it has really changed that much
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I wonder what the kms run in a match would have been back then? I know they wouldn’t have been able to measure that but I imagine that it would be less. (Of course they were nowhere near the athletes that they are today!)
The game is more intense these days and there is more European games and more international games.
But you are right when you see those stats you wonder if it has really changed that much
@DaGrubster Certainly the game was much, much slower back then. Attackers attacked and defenders defended so the real workers were the midfielders. I don't know whether they just made them play injured (probably) but the only time people seemed to out for long periods was when they broke a leg - although an ACL would often be career ending.
There now seems to be a group of players who never seem to be fit for any length of time. Examples below of 2 for Chelsea compared to 2 from Liverpool who are nearly always fit.
Chelsea have had 2 England full backs for the past 4 seasons - Reece James and Ben Chilwell. Except they never seem to be fit to play for any length of time. Over those 4 seasons, Chilwell has played 70 league games - averaging 17.5 per season and James has played 82 games - averaging 20.5. James has 24 in the past 2 seasons and Chilwell 36.
Liverpool have an England and a Scotland pair of full backs. TAA has 130 games average 32.5 and Robertson 122 average 30.5 and both of them have had spells of injury this season.
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Tottenham have been awful recently. Coach would want to be looking over his shoulder. Defence rubbish and attack hesitant.
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Tottenham have been awful recently. Coach would want to be looking over his shoulder. Defence rubbish and attack hesitant.
@Billy-Tell Emerson Royal at left-back is a walking calamity. Definitely thought they over achieved early in the season and now they just look as leaky as West Ham. And Villa are hardly storming to 4th spot but they haven't needed to with Spurs and Man U so poor.
Interesting that Ipswich have 2 consecutive promotions, neither time as champion but only 10 defeats over those 92 games.
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I wonder what the kms run in a match would have been back then? I know they wouldn’t have been able to measure that but I imagine that it would be less. (Of course they were nowhere near the athletes that they are today!)
The game is more intense these days and there is more European games and more international games.
But you are right when you see those stats you wonder if it has really changed that much
For what it's worth, on The Rest is Football a couple of weeks ago Micah Richards was arguing with Lineker and Shearer that the game is far more intense today.
While no one disputed that today's players are better athletes the two oldies said they thought it just as intense in their day because of the greater physicality, the lack of protection from referees and the state of the grounds - all of which were energy sapping and so added to the intensity
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Liverpool remembered how to convert chances a couple of games too late. As well as arsenal playing it will be a miracle if city don’t get 6 points from last 2 games.
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Yeah surely Man City do it from here. Would have to be a massive slip up if not!
Nice 5-nil demo job done by Chelsea this morning. Need to keep winning knowing that Man Untd and Newcastle will have to drop/share some points on the run home given they face each other
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@Billy-Tell Emerson Royal at left-back is a walking calamity. Definitely thought they over achieved early in the season and now they just look as leaky as West Ham. And Villa are hardly storming to 4th spot but they haven't needed to with Spurs and Man U so poor.
Interesting that Ipswich have 2 consecutive promotions, neither time as champion but only 10 defeats over those 92 games.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2023/2024:
@Billy-Tell Emerson Royal at left-back is a walking calamity. Definitely thought they over achieved early in the season and now they just look as leaky as West Ham. And Villa are hardly storming to 4th spot but they haven't needed to with Spurs and Man U so poor.
Interesting that Ipswich have 2 consecutive promotions, neither time as champion but only 10 defeats over those 92 games.
If Tottenham had 1 extra point things would be interesting as Aston Villa are running out of steam at a rapid rate and I'd be surprised if we get another point.
Thankfully for the Villains, Tottenham do have Man City, a game Tottenham would probably want to lose voluntarily haha.
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@Billy-Tell Emerson Royal at left-back is a walking calamity. Definitely thought they over achieved early in the season and now they just look as leaky as West Ham. And Villa are hardly storming to 4th spot but they haven't needed to with Spurs and Man U so poor.
Interesting that Ipswich have 2 consecutive promotions, neither time as champion but only 10 defeats over those 92 games.
@KiwiPie said in EPL 2023/2024:
@Billy-Tell Emerson Royal at left-back is a walking calamity. Definitely thought they over achieved early in the season and now they just look as leaky as West Ham. And Villa are hardly storming to 4th spot but they haven't needed to with Spurs and Man U so poor.
Interesting that Ipswich have 2 consecutive promotions, neither time as champion but only 10 defeats over those 92 games.
To be fair to Emerson he hasn't actually played much. We have been just as leaky with Udogie, Porro, Johnson and everyone else
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@MajorRage said in EPL 2023/2024:
Ten Hag sacked tonight surely
That was abject tonight. Without the decent players that they do have (Bruno was out) and Casemiro giving an all time dreadful performance at centre-back. At times he looked like the paunchy chap from a pub team who can play a bit.
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So relying on West Ham to beat city away. That’s like hoping the crusaders win a match home or away.
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So relying on West Ham to beat city away. That’s like hoping the crusaders win a match home or away.
@Billy-Tell said in EPL 2023/2024:
So relying on West Ham to beat city away. That’s like hoping the crusaders win a match home or away.
Relying on West Ham to draw or beat City away. Draw for City and win for Arsenal gives Arsenal the title on goal difference. Villa seal 4th place and UCL football. Spurs can still be tipped out of Europa if both Newcastle and Chelsea win their final 2 games and Spurs lose their final game. United need to beat Newcastle this week to realistically have a chance of top 7.
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Fuck City are annoying.
They last lost in early December. The 2nd half of the season their record is a frankly ridiculous 16-3-0
Arsenal on the other hand have gone a perfectly acceptable 14-1-4 and will likely finish 2nd.
They just don't lose in the league after December, ever. Relentless. It's why the old "top at Christmas" means fuck all. Even if you are top at Christmas, you know you are going to have to be exceptional for the rest of the season as well, as City will just grind you down.
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@Billy-Tell said in EPL 2023/2024:
So relying on West Ham to beat city away. That’s like hoping the crusaders win a match home or away.
Relying on West Ham to draw or beat City away. Draw for City and win for Arsenal gives Arsenal the title on goal difference. Villa seal 4th place and UCL football. Spurs can still be tipped out of Europa if both Newcastle and Chelsea win their final 2 games and Spurs lose their final game. United need to beat Newcastle this week to realistically have a chance of top 7.
@KiwiPie I think Man U and Chelsea would rather avoid the Conference league but one looks like they'll get it haha.
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Since the Leicester title win (2015/16), and Guardiola took over - City's points totals/games lost are as below. The often have a blip in the season but the blip is small and they go on long unbeaten runs.
2017 78/6 (3rd)
2018 100/2 (1st)
2019 98/4 (1st)
2020 81/9 (2nd)
2021 86/6 (1st)
2022 93/3 (1st)
2023 89/5 (1st) -
Liverpool have had seasons where they have scored 92 and 97 points and come 2nd.
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Nation state clubs have by and large undelivered but City' strategy of employing the best manager / coach / strategist in the world and then give him any player he wants is unsurprisingly, genius.
I'd like to see Pep leave for a smaller club to really test his abilities and see how City fare without him. I reckon they would decline markedly - not Utd plummet but come back to the pack.
It will never happen but it would be bloody interesting to see what Pep could do with sat Palace's resources. I reckon he's get them to CL. Players would join to play under him.
