The Title Race 2022/23

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alexmcity said:
We can't do without rotation, and Pep is a master of it going by our results over the last 5 years. Also, if you divide the squad between firm starters and bench warmers, squad harmony will suffer.

The fixture list after the WC will be brutal for all teams, and those which rotate the best will be the best. Old-school notions of (constantly playing) your best XI or best CB pair or best this and that should be retired nowadays. We have 17-18 high quality players and every one of them should feel part of the team and get opportunities to show his value to the team.
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We have to rotate but we also have to be smart in who we pick against certain opposition. Some will look to counter quickly and play the ball in behind so you'll want quicker players. Some will go aerial and you'll want a more physical partnership. With the WC looming we had no need to rotate though. Burn the fuckers into the ground whilst they're with us, let their national teams deal with it. It's basically what Pep said he'd do.

Mee and Toney are excellent in the air. Akanji isn't. Laporte is okay, but Ake is probably better and I'm sure a stat man can present the data to support that (or crucify me). Ake and Dias to me was the partnership for Brentford. Ake didn't play for personal reasons so Laporte and Dias should have been the combination. Akanji is composed on the ball and reads the game pretty well, but it's hard to settle into a side when your playing CB with different partners or at RB. Some players need that rhythm and he'll need to adapt. I just feel like it was obvious how Brentford would play and we should have picked the right system for it, or changed it. Bernardo had to come central for Gundogan and we needed Mahrez wide right, or to switch Foden there and play Grealish.
 
supercity88 said:
We have to rotate but we also have to be smart in who we pick against certain opposition. Some will look to counter quickly and play the ball in behind so you'll want quicker players. Some will go aerial and you'll want a more physical partnership. With the WC looming we had no need to rotate though. Burn the fuckers into the ground whilst they're with us, let their national teams deal with it. It's basically what Pep said he'd do.

Mee and Toney are excellent in the air. Akanji isn't. Laporte is okay, but Ake is probably better and I'm sure a stat man can present the data to support that (or crucify me). Ake and Dias to me was the partnership for Brentford. Ake didn't play for personal reasons so Laporte and Dias should have been the combination. Akanji is composed on the ball and reads the game pretty well, but it's hard to settle into a side when your playing CB with different partners or at RB. Some players need that rhythm and he'll need to adapt. I just feel like it was obvious how Brentford would play and we should have picked the right system for it, or changed it. Bernardo had to come central for Gundogan and we needed Mahrez wide right, or to switch Foden there and play Grealish.
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Akanji was bad vs Brentford, but it was a good idea to test him against such teams and see how he fares. Also, my guess is that Pep intends to play Akanji and Laporte in big games due to their ability to break the lines with forward passes, and they should play together to form a partnership.

In hindsight, many things may seem obvious, but that's in hindsight. Read the pre-match thread against Chelsea when we smashed them 6:0, most posters were pessimistic about the starting XI, it seemed strange. Pep is a top manager for a reason, and fans are fans for a reason.
 
Coatigan said:
I am saying they don't matter. And can't be used as a measure of a season. Winning and losing games can.

538 works as a formula, sure. So what. We still neec to win games, at least 2 or 3 more than Arsenal will manage as it stands.
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In terms of trophies I agree.

In terms of a how a team has performed I disagree.
 
Coatigan said:
I am saying they don't matter. And can't be used as a measure of a season. Winning and losing games can.

538 works as a formula, sure. So what. We still neec to win games, at least 2 or 3 more than Arsenal will manage as it stands.
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Algorithms are based on results, so it's hard to get your point. No one is silly enough to say that algorithms guarantee (title) wins or outcomes of games. 538 say that Arsenal have a 36% chance to win the title, that's pretty good. If we lose vs Leeds and they win their next game, then the chances between us and them will be even. And that's logical.

We are talking about probabilities. It's obvious that the outcomes of games and league compaings involve probabilities. Some things are possible but not probable. Life, not just football, is about probabilities, for few things are absolutely guaranteed. The question is, who is good at determining probabilities. Bookies and 538 are generally good. It's mathematically possible to have guaranteed success at betting on football games, a professional mathematician published a book on this topic, but the sums are relatively small and the strategy is boring. Anyway, that the bookies and 538 have us as favourites is hardly a surprise, and being favourites doesn't guarantee success.

If your point is that Arsenal can win and shouldn't be underestimated, most of us agree. If your point is that the chance for an Arsenal win isn't worse than City's, you can say why. To say that the calculation of probabilities is pointless is pointless, though, for our brains, our institutions, scientists, etc. calculate probabilities all the time.
 
supercity88 said:
We have to rotate but we also have to be smart in who we pick against certain opposition. Some will look to counter quickly and play the ball in behind so you'll want quicker players. Some will go aerial and you'll want a more physical partnership. With the WC looming we had no need to rotate though. Burn the fuckers into the ground whilst they're with us, let their national teams deal with it. It's basically what Pep said he'd do.

Mee and Toney are excellent in the air. Akanji isn't. Laporte is okay, but Ake is probably better and I'm sure a stat man can present the data to support that (or crucify me). Ake and Dias to me was the partnership for Brentford. Ake didn't play for personal reasons so Laporte and Dias should have been the combination. Akanji is composed on the ball and reads the game pretty well, but it's hard to settle into a side when your playing CB with different partners or at RB. Some players need that rhythm and he'll need to adapt. I just feel like it was obvious how Brentford would play and we should have picked the right system for it, or changed it. Bernardo had to come central for Gundogan and we needed Mahrez wide right, or to switch Foden there and play Grealish.
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I agree, neither Laporte or Akanji dealt very well with the aerial threat of Brentford imo. It was shame Ake wasn't available as he very good in the air and has been our best cb this season imo. Also I think Reuben would have been a better option than Akanji to handle the physicality of Toney.
 
Cobwebcat said:
In terms of trophies I agree.

In terms of a how a team has performed I disagree.
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That's fair, to a point. But as it doesn't take in things like form, injuries, off pitch distractions, refereeing/var inconsistency etc, I disagree.

The fact it can swing so suddey too makes it nothing meaningful to go by. Arsenal are overperforming, and their expectation hasn't caught up. I wouldn't say we are underperforming, but we could be doing better, hopefully will.

Don't get me wrong, I look at it myself, possibly as much as you do. I love seeing us predicted at over 70% chance of wining it. Doesn't mean I believe that to be the case at any given point.
 
HelloCity said:
People forget that Arsenal were in title races under Wenger in the 2010’s but fell away by March. They were up there in 2013-2014 for sure. That 6-3 game Dec 13 was billed as a title contender match but 3 months later they were no where.
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Yep. This Arsenal team are a good side, well balanced. But he tends to pick the same 11 for every match and if he can keep them up there, doing that till June, with WC hangovers and regular euro games then that will be an outstanding achievement of fitness and medical care.
 
alexmcity said:
Algorithms are based on results, so it's hard to get your point. No one is silly enough to say that algorithms guarantee (title) wins or outcomes of games. 538 say that Arsenal have a 36% chance to win the title, that's pretty good. If we lose vs Leeds and they win their next game, then the chances between us and them will be even. And that's logical.

We are talking about probabilities. It's obvious that the outcomes of games and league compaings involve probabilities. Some things are possible but not probable. Life, not just football, is about probabilities, for few things are absolutely guaranteed. The question is, who is good at determining probabilities. Bookies and 538 are generally good. It's mathematically possible to have guaranteed success at betting on football games, a professional mathematician published a book on this topic, but the sums are relatively small and the strategy is boring. Anyway, that the bookies and 538 have us as favourites is hardly a surprise, and being favourites doesn't guarantee success.

If your point is that Arsenal can win and shouldn't be underestimated, most of us agree. If your point is that the chance for an Arsenal win isn't worse than City's, you can say why. To say that the calculation of probabilities is pointless is pointless, though, for our brains, our institutions, scientists, etc. calculate probabilities all the time.
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All fair, other than I didn't say they are pointless. I said they don't matter. In the sense, they are simply predictions based on how they expect teams to perform. But both teams are already deviating from the expectation. If that makes sense.
 
Coatigan said:
All fair, other than I didn't say they are pointless. I said they don't matter. In the sense, they are simply predictions based on how they expect teams to perform. But both teams are already deviating from the expectation. If that makes sense.
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They don't matter for what?

They don't matter in the trivial sense, that they don't play on the pitch and decide games, nobody in his right mind would say otherwise.

They do matter, though, if one wants to form an opinion on the probabilities for a City title win after the loss vs Brentford. E.g., one can be worried we are in a bad position now, and can question his worrying conclusions by looking up at people who are better at calculating probabilities of football games. Probabilities don't guarantee outcomes, nobody denies that.
 
This is an arsenal team that absolutely saw their arse when trying to get top 4 last season. They are going to have do something they haven’t done in nearly 20 years so if they do then fair play
 
alexmcity said:
Akanji was bad vs Brentford, but it was a good idea to test him against such teams and see how he fares. Also, my guess is that Pep intends to play Akanji and Laporte in big games due to their ability to break the lines with forward passes, and they should play together to form a partnership.

In hindsight, many things may seem obvious, but that's in hindsight. Read the pre-match thread against Chelsea when we smashed them 6:0, most posters were pessimistic about the starting XI, it seemed strange. Pep is a top manager for a reason, and fans are fans for a reason.
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It would have been a good idea to test Akanji if we'd have won. But clearly it wasn't. He wasn't in isolation at being poor but it was a game he was always going to struggle in based on his attributes and how Brentford were likely to play. It's not in hindsight that this issue has arisen either. It was there to see from the pattern of play in the first half which didn't change through the second. Sometimes Pep trusts his team to find their way through and he sticks with it. But the changes came too late and were illogical. He’s undoubtedly a top manager but that doesn’t mean he gets it right and can’t be criticised. He got the CL final completely wrong having picked a consistent team finally and sticking with it. Zinchenko came on against PSG performed brilliantly and kept his place. Pep tried different things against Chelsea in the build up and simply played the occasion rather than seeing how much better we were if we played our natural game. The result might not have changed but we'd have been more effective.

Anyway, this isn’t the thread for that. It’s about a title race and we’re in one. Football is an art not a science. There’s merit in statistics but sometimes a team beats another one when no one gives them a chance and that’s why we love it. Leicester defied the stats to win it. Arsenal could do the same. We’d expect them to stutter when the games come more regularly for them, but they might find a way of winning and the likes of Vieira, Nketiah and Smith Rowe might come in on rotation and deliver. We might continue our poor form and lack of balance and struggle to put that winning run together that we’re hoping for and to a big degree expecting.

What’s for sure is, with Pep in charge, he will not allow this team to rest on its laurels and he’ll hammer them until they’re giving more and performing. I can't wait for the season to restart!
 
That's interesting for nerds. AI will take over football in the coming decades. Wouldn't be surprised if Pep turned out to be one of the last great (human) coaches. In a decade or two, AI coaches will be better tacticians than the human ones.

Surprisingly, stats models have Belgium as favourites in the WC and England as12th. Bit strange that.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41...=nature&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1668520997
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I think you do City a massive disservice?

It's not a title race until games have real pressure around them, something Arsenal are yet to experience.

Completely different animal the closer something becomes.

Arsenal have done very well up to this point but they don't have the experience of a run-in, coupled with the weight of expectation a club like Arsenal has to a massive underdog like Leicester were.

If Arsenal finish top three, Arteta deserves huge credit, because I don't see them still in the mix by the time March comes around.

They will have something like 19 games in 46 days after the World Cup.

Brutal for a squad like ours, never mind Arsenal's.
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Certainly not intentionally, I do tend to prepare myself for worst case scenario so I'm possibly just preparing myself for Arsenal running away with it. I am genuinely concerned but you are right they don't have experience like we do. I keep waiting for them to slip up and they are jumping and clearing every hurdle which is alarming
 
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alexmcity said:
That's interesting for nerds. AI will take over football in the coming decades. Wouldn't be surprised if Pep turned out to be one of the last great (human) coaches. In a decade or two, AI coaches will be better tacticians than the human ones.

Surprisingly, stats models have Belgium as favourites in the WC and England as12th. Bit strange that.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41...=nature&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1668520997
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Interesting article.

From what I hear on data podcasts City Liverpool Barca Brighton and Brentford are at the front of footy data analytics right now the latter two very obviously driven but their owners.

538 International rankings here;

 
MadchesterCity said:
Certainly not intentionally, I do tend to prepare myself for worst case scenario so I'm possibly just preparing myself for Arsenal running away with it. I am genuinely concerned but you are right they don't have experience like we do. I keep waiting for them to slip up and they are jumping and clearing every hurdle which is alarming
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Not even the first furlong mate.

Wait until they have to do the whole course again.

I actually think City won't feel the pressure as much it being Arsenal, rather than Liverpool?

Perhaps that will help Arsenal, but I suspect our lads will play with a little more freedom.

Won't do us any harm either, five or six teams fighting for top four and having vested interests.
 
Blu3m00n91 said:
This is an arsenal team that absolutely saw their arse when trying to get top 4 last season. They are going to have do something they haven’t done in nearly 20 years so if they do then fair play
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It isn't though. It is that team with 5 or 6 players replaced with better players, including a couple that have been through the winning mill before.

They will be about and take consistenty to beat. And it will feel all the better if we do.
 
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