Erikse

Pace AND length?

What's going on with Fulham?

Apparently standing in the way of the goalie isn't allowed.

First line: I included that in the post you quoted. Noone thinks that all those teams will win the rest of the games. Noone thinks that all teams with nothing to play for will just give up. However teams having nothing to play for IS a factor, ofcourse it matters. Lets look at the numbers: 6th and 5th place after gameweek 33: 19/20: 52 & 55 pts 20/21: 54 & 55 pts 21/22: 54 & 57 pts 22/23: 54 & 56 pts 23/24: 53 & 60 pts 24/25: 57 & 58 pts My only argument was that this season will probably see a higher number than usual. So far the numbers back that up aswell. What other people are saying every season is completely irrelevant to what the situation is right now.

Does it happen every year that 15 teams has nothing to play for (bar conference league) nearly 10 games before the end, or that the bottom 3 has a total of 50 points after 33 games each? And yet 2nd place has less than 2 points per game. All of this means more points to the rest, especially those who are actually fighting for something. People say it every year before the season, and I do get annoyed about that myself. I said it after 33-34 rounds, because now we have 100 times more information.

It's going to require an unusually high amount of points this year. 5th will almost be like getting 4th in the other seasons, atleast from a points perspective.

Everton players has taken an early holiday by the looks of it.

It's important to allways connect random events to each other to make conspiracies out of everything. X event happens right after Y event = they must be linked! Remember, it's never a coincidence.

The Botman injury update came the day before we conceded 4 goals. You guys reckon our central defenders suffered from performance anxiety knowing that they might lose their spot to Botman in the next game?

Yeah, he phoned Tindall straight after the game and told him that the team is useless he's at the wheel, so he couldn't rest any longer.

Well rested. We'll be winning every game comfortably.

A significant factor for this (apart from the free wins vs bottom 3) must be how these 5 teams are the only ones that has anything to play for, and how it has been like this for a while. A small exception is the fight for 8th, which atleast gives us some hope for if we have to rely on Fulham and Bournemouth.. I think we are in a good position, but it might happen.

Nightmares from Chelsea winning the last 5 games last season..

Yep. That's what I mean, Villa dropping below 7th doesn't matter if we are guaranteed to be above those 3 teams, so it's not a factor in that regard. I guess you figured it out by now though.

Hence why 3 more points (if we beat Ipswich) would guarantee it. Not sure what you meant by "1 point from". If you meant to guarantee finishing above those 3 teams, then yes, but that would require 3 points (not 1) after Ipswich if they somehow keep winning.

In that case we are guaranteed top 6, so your first question is correct. Edit: Actually it's 3 points from guaranteed if Bournemouth wins. They would be 10 points behind us.

It's quite the dilemma in terms of how you should look at it. In one way the teams finishing 5th could have done it with less points. Likewise any team below 5th would have needed to beat the points total (or equal + GD) of the 5th placed team. So, what is really the best way of looking at it? Both ways seems right and wrong at the same time.

They did it again..

Ah yeah, and then you are cutting right before the 4-0 game vs us, so it will never be equal. The game before the Spurs game they lost to Liverpool. Bar Villa they are facing no opponent remotely close to what Liverpool were at that time, so including that game seemed pointless. Again, if I am uncluding that then I am cutting it right before their biggest win of the season. If I was only interested in pushing an agenda, I would have included both of those games, as the total of those 2 (considering oppoonents) only strengthens the idea that their form has been good. We can include the game before aswell where they got trashed by Arsenal, but then again, what they are facing are nothing like those teams anyways. If we look past the strongest opponents (since they are already done playing them), they are consistenly getting more than 2 pts per game against the type of teams they have left. They might absolutely draw a game, but even a loss against Villa and a draw against mid (or low) table side puts them in a great position if they win the other 3. They will have 68 points if so. They are the favourites for 3rd place accoring to bookies, and to use one of your quotes, "it is for a reason".

Top is most recent. A continuation of this with those fixtures that they have left gets them top 5, it's as simple as that. They just need to keep picking up points like they have been doing, nomatter how much you try to bend it to seem like their results have been bad lately. If bad form means not winning every single game, then yes, in that world their form isn't good.

Feeling bad about this run in for us, as we did lose quite a bit of games 6 months ago. We're out of form.

You're focusing too much on their 2024 form over here. That doesn't matter anymore. Their stats are 9-3-3 since their terrible form pre 2025. As mentioned all of the losses were to top 7 teams. Ofcourse they may draw a game or two, but that's not enough. They need to have a serious dip in form to not get it over the line.

City were fortunate, but we have talked about how unconvincing they look since december. They are the masters of unconvincing wins at this point. The problem is that the weaker opponents often need more chances to score than what they do. If there's one team that will keep their nerves in check, it's Man City. They have so much experience with tight run ins and important games.

My dad (Villa fan) kept telling me that Man City didn't look good at all against Everton, and through the entire game I said don't worry, they will get there in the end anyways. That's just what they have been doing against these weaker sides in 2025.

Probably the only game they have a decent chance of losing. And that one is more like a 50/50.