The Europeometer™ (2024/25)

[ChrisJbarnes]

10 games into the season with the start we've had including man city in the LC, PSG, MIlan and Dortmund and with the injuries we've had, to be 6th feels like a pretty good place. Add to that the joint best goal difference in the league and which will effectively give us an extra point over man united, Brighton and west ham at the end of the season. 

[Froggy]

21 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

You can't press with Maguire and Evans at cb.

 

Exactly. 

[Froggy]

19 minutes ago, Geogaddi said:

Comparing Eddie to Ten Hag, look where we were when Eddie took over compared to where we are now then do the same with Ten Hag and Man United whilst also looking at the cost of each squad, it’s not even up for debate who the better manager is.

 

Not sure anyone compared the two. 

 

Quite hilarious to suggest it's not up for debate that Howe is a better manager than Ten Hag though. someone has forgotten where we were in 21/22.

[Jagten]

7 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

Not sure anyone compared the two. 

 

Quite hilarious to suggest it's not up for debate that Howe is a better manager than Ten Hag though. someone has forgotten where we were in 21/22.

I actually don't think it's obvious, adjusted for transfer spend, he's improved anything. Man Utd's underlying numbers were not a radical improvement on 20-22, and they were likely fortunate to in the top four last year. His talent ID is not great and he's a known weirdo, which is why Spurs passed. He's obviously good at some stuff, but a lack of tactical evolution and/or flexibility is killing him. 

[KingArthur]

23 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

Exactly. 

Then the question is, why did some of your players push up to press, when the back 4 couldn't follow? Ten Hag doesn't have a control of his team?

[The College Dropout]

ETH is a typical Dutchmen with no ability to galvanise a squad and a fanbase. 
 

Hes publicly fallen out with Cristiano, Maguire and Sancho. The squad doesn’t need that type of drama. 
 

Ole was not a coach or a tactician. But for a long time he managed to get (nearly) everyone at the club to pull in the same direction. That’s an under rated skill in management.  Eddie has it. 

[McDog]

Just now, The College Dropout said:

ETH is a typical Dutchmen with no ability to galvanise a squad and a fanbase. 
 

Hes publicly fallen out with Cristiano, Maguire and Sancho. The squad doesn’t need that type of drama. 
 

Ole was not a coach or a tactician. But for a long time he managed to get (nearly) everyone at the club to pull in the same direction. That’s an under rated skill in management.  Eddie has it. 

 

I agree, it's a huge thing. It doesn't get you all the way there without talent but you win alot more games if spirit is on the upswing.

[Guest]

Not really a concern as such but what could be the difference between top 5 and top 7, are games like these West Ham and Wolves matches. When we were drawing these sorts of games last season it was down to us not having enough to break them down at 0-0 or 1-1. If we scored two in those sorts of games we'd win. 

[The College Dropout]

1 hour ago, Optimistic Nut said:

Not really a concern as such but what could be the difference between top 5 and top 7, are games like these West Ham and Wolves matches. When we were drawing these sorts of games last season it was down to us not having enough to break them down at 0-0 or 1-1. If we scored two in those sorts of games we'd win. 

With fitness and less injuries we probably win both. 
 

As a CL level team that comes with the territory.  And we need to be better at defending leads with tired legs. IMO that means having a functional compact mid to low block. And/or being more comfortable keeping possession for possessions sake. Thats where having Bruno & Tonali would’ve been great. 

[Erikse]

Just realised that we have just taken 5 points from 5 in our away games.. They have been tough, but last season we took nearly as many points away from home as in our home games.

 

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Erikse

[STM]

3 minutes ago, Erikse said:

Just realised that we have just taken 5 points from 5 in our away games.. They have been tough, but last season we took nearly as many points away from home as in our home games.

 

 

 

 

If we hold at West Ham, I'd argue that 7 points from those games was fantastic. Man City is a virtual write off.

[The Prophet]

31 minutes ago, Erikse said:

Just realised that we have just taken 5 points from 5 in our away games.. They have been tough, but last season we took nearly as many points away from home as in our home games.

 

 

 

 

To be fair we took six points from the equivalent fixtures last year, subbing Leeds for Sheffield United.

[Erikse]

12 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

 

To be fair we took six points from the equivalent fixtures last year, subbing Leeds for Sheffield United.

 

Sheffield United is way more of a free win than what any team was last season though, certainly Leeds away was tougher. West Ham is a bit stronger now maybe, but not that much. You're right though, hasn't been the best of fixtures, but we're literally 15th place in the away table.

[Coffee_Johnny]

On 01/10/2023 at 11:10, Coffee_Johnny said:Assumptions made are in Spoiler below. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Assuming we are aiming for a top six season, then taking 6th as a minimum target, here is a way of gauging when we will, on average, pick-up the 62 points likely to be required (average for PL).

Categorising the teams (mainly on last season’s position) into four tiers and predicting we will pick-up (rounded-up) 9pts from T1 (all tiers ten games except 8 in Tier 1), 16 pts from Tier 2, 18pts from T3, and 19pts from T4 teams. 

Tier 1: 8 games 24 pts available, 9 predcited (1 win 2 draws 1 loss at H; 1 win 1 draw 2 losses Away = 5pts + 4 = 9pts). So, 1.25ppg at Home and 1.0ppg Away.

Man City

Arsenal

Man Utd

NUFC

Liverpool

Tier 2: 10 games 30 pts available, 16pts predicted (3 wins 1 draw 1 loss at Home; 2 wins, 0  draw, 3 losses Away =10 +6pts). So, 2.0ppg at Home  and 1.2 ppg Away

Brighton 

Aston Villa

Spurs

Brentford

Chelsea

Tier 3: 10 games 30 pts available, 18pts predicted (3 wins 1 draw 1 loss at H; 2 wins 2 draws 1 loss Away= 10+8pts). So, 2.0ppg at H ome and 1.6ppg Away.

Palace

Fulham

Wolves

West Ham

Bournemouh

Tier 4 10 games 30 pts available, 19pts predicted (3 wins and 2 draws at Home; 2 wins 2 draws 1 loss Away= 11+8pts) . So, 2.2ppg at H and 1.6ppg Away .

Forest

Everton

Burnley

Sheffield Utd

Luton 

Remember this is a prediction for 6th.  Taking into account the relative difficulty of games would mean the following pattern of picking up points at different stages of the season.  The average points per month for the top five is also shown, just using number of games per month. I'll correct this as the games inevitably get moved around. The points per match are just indicative, it’s the points per month which will show how on track we are. 

Update on tracker towards a top six finish, taking account of the relative difficulty of games as they fall across the season. 17 points, at the end of October, puts us on track for a fifth place finish for the average PL season (assumptions in hidden content quoted). 6th would be 16 points to date. 4th would be 18 points, third 19, second 21 and first 23. 
 

[Hovagod]

56 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Sheffield United is way more of a free win than what any team was last season though, certainly Leeds away was tougher. West Ham is a bit stronger now maybe, but not that much. You're right though, hasn't been the best of fixtures, but we're literally 15th place in the away table.

Both Manchester clubs laboured to a win at Sheffield, just because we were excellent that day doesn’t make it a ‘free win’

[janpawel]

Yeah our only away win so far is against Sheffield, we definitely do need to make sure we are getting wins away from home against the bottom half teams

[The Prophet]

Aye, we have only played two bottom half teams away from home though.

 

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by The Prophet

[Kanj]

Some great posts in here today. 

[Erikse]

41 minutes ago, Hovagod said:

Both Manchester clubs laboured to a win at Sheffield, just because we were excellent that day doesn’t make it a ‘free win’

 

Southampton took points from top teams last season. No PL opponent is literally a free win, but you can't deny that Sheffield United is an easier fixture than what Leeds was, and probably also easier than what Southampton was.

 

We're probably going to collect more points away from home going forward though, which we should if we want top 4 this season.

 

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Erikse

[The Prophet]

 

[Guest]

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? 

[The Prophet]

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.

[janpawel]

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

[The Prophet]

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

[timeEd32]

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.