timeEd32

Whenever I see him I wonder how he doesn’t score 35 goals in a season in the same way I wonder how Wan Bissaka isn’t the best fullback in the world.

That ball Martinez played is where we suffer from Pope.

For 15 minutes. We’ve ripped them apart three straight times.

This is the problem more blatantly with the Conference League. English clubs have so much money that it diminishes it as any sort of achievement.

Bilbao knocking out Man United and Spurs to win it would be very pleasing.

You can be annoyed by this or take joy in the fact that Man United currently sit 14th in the league and a Europa League quarterfinal is the highlight of their season. How the mighty have fallen.

While we're digging up old posts it's very odd how much he's paralleling the Fergie timeline and also frustrating how the growing financial gap makes the title wins significantly less likely.

I opened this thread expecting a barrel of laughs at the two own goals.

It's not just that we won a trophy either. We thoroughly outplayed the top two teams in the country over three games to do it.

Not going to hedge it anymore. Despite having a player with 24 goals I think Tonali is our best and most important player.

Every game feels like life or death, but you can stumble quite a bit every season and finish 4th/5th. It’s title races that usually allow for very little margin of error.

From what could have been 1-1 to 4-0 in the blink of an eye. This and the second half surge vs Man United is what we haven’t seen as much at home like 2022/23. Champions League here we come.

I love this team and club. That is all.

A lot of this is down to City being good in the second half IMO. We’ll need to be on it on Wednesday. And I can tell I’m going to really hate Palace when we play them. Poor challenges, little kicks, complaining. Step up Big Joe.

Yes, so basically Villa for CL. And Man United / Spurs for Europa.

No, can be 7. Five from league and two European winners.

Wouldn't really work with the UEFA rules anyway.

Rough timeframes. Since Jan 18: Bournemouth (h) - thoroughly dismantled Southampton (a) - good; worst team in the league Fulham (h) - awful second half City (a) - no good Forest (h) - excellent most of first half; poor-ish second half Liverpool (a) - lackluster (for a legitimate reason) West Ham (a) - solid Brentford (h) - ok, not great Leicester (a) - good but they are awful We've gotten enough results to look good in the form table, but the performances haven't been as good as the nine games (all comps) before that. But five of those, including three of the defeats, are firmly in LC excuse territory so you can draw lots of conclusions. If there's one thing worrying me it's that we haven't played a good 90 minutes at home in the league in almost two months. If we can show that next week then I'll be wondering whether we can get 3rd more than if we'll get CL.

Yes, that's the game that was moved for the cup final. 15 games includes our genuinely excellent form in Dec/Jan. I think it's fair to say we haven't looked quite as convincing in Feb/Mar but you can also point to the League Cup as the reason.

For me it's still just fun to look at all the what-ifs as we compete much higher up the table. The only thing that adds stress is the fact that the difference between 5th and 6th could be a true crossroads for the near term future of the club.

The fact it's our third game in a week and we actually get one less day of rest/prep than them is what worries me. After that though we have just one game a week for the rest of the season. I think Eddie will get the players up for a huge CL qualification week.

This is the thing the average big 6 supporter either misses or chooses to ignore. They tie the progress that's been made directly to PSR limits being pushed. Ultimately it doesn't matter if they don't give Howe or Emery proper credit, but I find it infuriating.

They’d be in quite the relegation battle at the moment.

I hope this is as fun as I'm imagining it could be.