The Prophet Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 39 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said: I started it but gave up after 3 matchdays, is someone able to work out Villa & Spurs' points swings in their like for like games? By my very rough calculation, Spurs are 11 points better off and Villa 2. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
janpawel Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 Yeah seeing everyone else's point swings would be interesting, especially in comparison to ours, I'm suprised at villa only being 2 better off as they have started exceptionally, though if they won these fixtures last year the fair enough. Tottenham, Villa and Liverpool you'd think will score more points or potentially could do , man u, Brighton and Chelsea perhaps around a similar level Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 So some very quick fag packet maths, from the teams in and around us last year: Man United -7 Us +3 Liverpool +3 Villa +2 Brighton -2 Spurs +11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
timeEd32 Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 On 28/10/2023 at 23:43, Ronaldo said: That’s the point surely. We finished 4th way ahead of Villa and Brighton etc last season and they’ve got more matches too. Spurs have lost their best player. The whole point of the transfer window was to prepare for those additional fixtures and try to consolidate our place, surely? If we finish 7th or 8th the owner will ask why the money was spent as it was on players who thus far aren’t able / being allowed to contribute. This isn't really a fair way to look at it. We finished 4th last year exceeding everyone's expectations after 18 months prior heading straight for relegation. The team needed serious investment to make up for the preceding years. That investment happened in consecutive windows in 2022 without any real progress on the revenue side. We've been playing a revenue vs. outgoings balancing act ever since then. On the bolded bit - per all reports everyone involved in running the club is involved in our transfer strategy. It would have presumably been a group decision to take the approach we did. I'm sure Yasir has asked why we didn't know about Tonali's gambling habits but ultimately that's a bad break as is Barnes. We've had additional bad luck with Willock, Joelinton, Botman, Murphy, and Isak. Our two most promising youngsters are also unavailable right now due to injury / illness. It seems pretty disingenuous to question why we signed two extremely promising fullbacks when we have almost an entire XI unavailable for various reasons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The College Dropout Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 2 hours ago, The Prophet said: So some very quick fag packet maths, from the teams in and around us last year: Man United -7 Us +3 Liverpool +3 Villa +2 Brighton -2 Spurs +11 That would put us 3rd right? We got 6 points from Spurs. 4 from Man U. That was massive. We would do brilliantly to get 6 points from Spurs again. Any less and they overtake us in that comparison. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
STM Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 Every single thing about the club at the moment is positive. Even the bumps in the road are bumps along a shiny gold plated highway. Tonalis ban? The fact we signed a player of his calibre still delights me Fixture congestion? Aye coz we are actually in europe and competing in cups. Big injury list? Yep, still only lost 1 in 10, in all comps. Could have signed more ready made players? Fair but I've begged for an actual medium/long term transfer strategy. This idea that "well they could have done this better" seems a bit bizarre to me.... so what? As long as they overall trend of our strategy and planning is upward, I couldn't give a toss. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeletor Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 The league is far more competitive this year (Man Utd aside). The real important work will be not to lose any key players in the summer if we don't make the CL again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 The league looks like it's going to pan out in similar fashion to last year with a clear gulf between the top and bottom halves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groundhog63 Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 25 minutes ago, STM said: Every single thing about the club at the moment is positive. Even the bumps in the road are bumps along a shiny gold plated highway. Tonalis ban? The fact we signed a player of his calibre still delights me Fixture congestion? Aye coz we are actually in europe and competing in cups. Big injury list? Yep, still only lost 1 in 10, in all comps. Could have signed more ready made players? Fair but I've begged for an actual medium/long term transfer strategy. This idea that "well they could have done this better" seems a bit bizarre to me.... so what? As long as they overall trend of our strategy and planning is upward, I couldn't give a toss. Post of the week Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronaldo Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 1 hour ago, timeEd32 said: This isn't really a fair way to look at it. We finished 4th last year exceeding everyone's expectations after 18 months prior heading straight for relegation. The team needed serious investment to make up for the preceding years. That investment happened in consecutive windows in 2022 without any real progress on the revenue side. We've been playing a revenue vs. outgoings balancing act ever since then. On the bolded bit - per all reports everyone involved in running the club is involved in our transfer strategy. It would have presumably been a group decision to take the approach we did. I'm sure Yasir has asked why we didn't know about Tonali's gambling habits but ultimately that's a bad break as is Barnes. We've had additional bad luck with Willock, Joelinton, Botman, Murphy, and Isak. Our two most promising youngsters are also unavailable right now due to injury / illness. It seems pretty disingenuous to question why we signed two extremely promising fullbacks when we have almost an entire XI unavailable for various reasons. Well no, it doesn’t. Neither of them are getting a game even when the other full backs are fucked. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 Livramento and Hall could be our full backs for the next decade, it seems pretty obvious why we signed them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilko Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 14 minutes ago, The Prophet said: Livramento and Hall could be our full backs for the next decade, it seems pretty obvious why we signed them. All well and good if we had a bit more room to manoeuvre in the budget. The Tonali thing you can't mitigate for, the Barnes injury unfortunate, but as it stands today we've effectively spent the best part of £140m and swapped Jamal Lewis and Harrison Ashby for two other benchwarmers who are far better but don't see the pitch much more than they did. They'll both turn out to be good players for us I'm sure but it's not going to do us a lot of good in the short term. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PauloGeordio Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 1 hour ago, STM said: Every single thing about the club at the moment is positive. Even the bumps in the road are bumps along a shiny gold plated highway. Tonalis ban? The fact we signed a player of his calibre still delights me Fixture congestion? Aye coz we are actually in europe and competing in cups. Big injury list? Yep, still only lost 1 in 10, in all comps. Could have signed more ready made players? Fair but I've begged for an actual medium/long term transfer strategy. This idea that "well they could have done this better" seems a bit bizarre to me.... so what? As long as they overall trend of our strategy and planning is upward, I couldn't give a toss. No relegationometer too! Enjoy the ride. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 33 minutes ago, Pilko said: All well and good if we had a bit more room to manoeuvre in the budget. The Tonali thing you can't mitigate for, the Barnes injury unfortunate, but as it stands today we've effectively spent the best part of £140m and swapped Jamal Lewis and Harrison Ashby for two other benchwarmers who are far better but don't see the pitch much more than they did. They'll both turn out to be good players for us I'm sure but it's not going to do us a lot of good in the short term. With the squad being as thin as it is, it was difficult to win that regard. If Trippier had picked up an injury early doors we'd almost certainly be questioning why we didn't sign a right back. It just so happens we've picked up a lot of injuries further up the pitch. As for Hall, he hasn't done too much damage to the budget. His availability on a loan-to-buy was probably the reason we were interested. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lish007 Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 Hall may not even be up to Eddie's standard yet... It takes months to learn the ropes and he's super young. He also didn't have any kind of pre season which is very difficult. It takes aagggesss to be "Eddie Fit" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stottie Posted October 30, 2023 Share Posted October 30, 2023 9 hours ago, The Prophet said: So some very quick fag packet maths, from the teams in and around us last year: Man United -7 Us +3 Liverpool +3 Villa +2 Brighton -2 Spurs +11 10 games in and we're ahead of Brighton, Man U and Chelsea. Finishing top five means staying ahead of them and overtaking one of Liverpool, Villa, Spurs, and Arsenal, included because they're not on City's level. We've only played two of them, both at home, but outplayed both of them and should have taken all the points. Just on Tottenham, but they'd won something like 11 in a row at home when we played there on Oct 24 last year. Schar overhits one over the top, Lloris chests it, and a year later its us in the CL. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SUPERTOON Posted October 31, 2023 Share Posted October 31, 2023 13 hours ago, The Prophet said: With the squad being as thin as it is, it was difficult to win that regard. If Trippier had picked up an injury early doors we'd almost certainly be questioning why we didn't sign a right back. It just so happens we've picked up a lot of injuries further up the pitch. As for Hall, he hasn't done too much damage to the budget. His availability on a loan-to-buy was probably the reason we were interested. Aye on the Hall one, I’m not sure it was a case of we signed Hall and couldn’t get anyone else. I think we signed him as he was the only one of our targets available for a loan to buy deal. If we hadn’t have signed him I don’t think it means someone else would have come in. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conjo Posted October 31, 2023 Share Posted October 31, 2023 16 hours ago, STM said: Every single thing about the club at the moment is positive. Even the bumps in the road are bumps along a shiny gold plated highway. Tonalis ban? The fact we signed a player of his calibre still delights me Fixture congestion? Aye coz we are actually in europe and competing in cups. Big injury list? Yep, still only lost 1 in 10, in all comps. Could have signed more ready made players? Fair but I've begged for an actual medium/long term transfer strategy. This idea that "well they could have done this better" seems a bit bizarre to me.... so what? As long as they overall trend of our strategy and planning is upward, I couldn't give a toss. I don't mind discussions on what can and could have been done better (as long as it isn't in the form of the feces flinging criticism we too often see in match threads). This is a discussion forum after all, but I hope for the vast majority that what you've said above is the over arching sentiment. Despite discussing hypotheticals, we are mostly overjoyed by where we are as a club at the moment, excited about what is to come and enjoy cheering on the great personalities we have in the dugout and on the pitch. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRon Posted November 2, 2023 Share Posted November 2, 2023 When a team of reserves knocks two CL favourites out of a cup competiton then it has to have an effect on CL positions. This result will have a massive knock on effect for both us and our rivals. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt1892 Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 We have now played six of the eight other clubs that finished in the top nine last season, such a tough start for us but we are still up there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prophet Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 Aston Villa (h) 5-1 v 4-0 City (a) 1-0 v 2-0 Liverpool (h) 1-2 v 0-2 Brighton (a) 3-1 v 0-0 Brentford home (h) 1-0 v 5-1 Sheffield United (Leeds) (a) 0-8 v 2-2 Burnley (Leicester) (h) 2-0 v 0-0 West Ham (a) 2-2 v 1-5 Palace (h) 4-0 v 0-0 Wolves (a) 2-2 v 1-1 Arsenal (h) 1-0 v 0-2 +6 points, +10 GD. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCK Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 Still think its going to be too difficult, but at least we're trying Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Checko Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 With our cup draws, injuries, inexperience at the highest level and just general not-quite-yet-champions-league-ready squad depth I can't imagine we're gonna have a much tougher season than this going forward. I'd be shocked if we get top four. But we'll get a ton of experience and battle-hardening dealing with big games so hopefully it'll be great for the players, and the coaching staff going forward. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SUPERTOON Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 We just need to stay in touch, the schedule isn’t always going to be this hectic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danh1 Posted November 4, 2023 Share Posted November 4, 2023 29 minutes ago, OCK said: Still think its going to be too difficult, but at least we're trying People seem to have dismissed us and we are going about our business quietly. Perfect for us Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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