Closing the gap isn’t the priority right now. It’s not a case of them not dropping 9 points over the season, they will, the issue is can we keep pace with them until Christmas before we can reinforce and look to make up the difference.
We’ve played 2 of the so called top 6+ Leicester so far and dropped 11 points, 5 of which was against those 2. We’re coming into a period where our next six league games are Newcastle Burnley and arsenal away and Chelsea United and Leicester at home, that’s about as tough as it gets. Meanwhile in the same time, Liverpool play palace and Bournemouth away(West Ham away postponed) and Brighton Everton and Watford at home. It would take a miracle for us to keep pace with them through that given our respective starts.
It’s too easy to blame var but the truth is our performances haven’t been good enough. var had no impact on us losing to Norwich or wolves which has been costlier than the dropped points because of var decisions going against us.