Aston Villa (A) - Sun 26th Oct, 14:00 | PL | Pre-Match Thread

Match Result Prediction?

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Withnail said:
Arsenal have the strongest squad and are obviously favourites, but City just need to keep on their tails as much as possible. I think we will get better as the season progresses and once players like Reijnders and Cherki get up to speed we will see a more slick and dynamic team.
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Yeah I see that am worried we might be to far behind by then! Only hope is they draw a few games and team can defend those corners
 
Withnail said:
Arsenal have the strongest squad and are obviously favourites, but City just need to keep on their tails as much as possible. I think we will get better as the season progresses and once players like Reijnders and Cherki get up to speed we will see a more slick and dynamic team.
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Fuckers have only conceded 3 goals in 12 games this season. You don’t have to score many with a defence like that
 
69FACUPfinal said:
My sentiments exactly. I posted similar Tuesday night post match when Nico G got injured and got called out for it by a poster who reckons we don't have an unusually high number of injuries....Like WTAF, I didn't bother responding because I'm not sure what planet the poster has been on this last 7 seasons or so!! We have at the very least one major injury a year ( Gundo, Kev, Aymeric, Gabby, Rodri, Vinny, Sane, Jonny Boy ( every year),Phil, Erling - the list goes on. Indeed we never seem to have an empty physios couch....

I'm just despairing at times, I really am with it all. Surely it's not just bad luck?
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I'm not the poster you're refering to but they're right, we don't. The unusual thing would be to have a fully fit squad. You only need to look elsewhere to see we have been very fortunate with injuries over the last several seasons.

Until last season we hadn't suffered a severe injury list at once, it was always a manageable 1 or 2 at once, practically everybody else (except arsenal) have had periods, often multiple, with half a side or more missing. Even last season, in our worst season for injuries under Pep, our injuries were not as bad as others, we sat 7th in the rankings for having players unavailable for games due to injury. Our injuries were just exaggerated by our small squad which was our choice and very avoidable and Pep continually throwing in unfit players who reinjured themselves which again is down to a decision being made.

Our current injury list stands at 2, with a questionable and a few not match fit, hardly a crisis, we're slap bang in the middle of the pack for injuries this season.
 
69FACUPfinal said:
My sentiments exactly. I posted similar Tuesday night post match when Nico G got injured and got called out for it by a poster who reckons we don't have an unusually high number of injuries....Like WTAF, I didn't bother responding because I'm not sure what planet the poster has been on this last 7 seasons or so!! We have at the very least one major injury a year ( Gundo, Kev, Aymeric, Gabby, Rodri, Vinny, Sane, Jonny Boy ( every year),Phil, Erling - the list goes on. Indeed we never seem to have an empty physios couch....

I'm just despairing at times, I really am with it all. Surely it's not just bad luck?
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Withnail said:
Arsenal have the strongest squad and are obviously favourites, but City just need to keep on their tails as much as possible. I think we will get better as the season progresses and once players like Reijnders and Cherki get up to speed we will see a more slick and dynamic team.
Click to expand...

We have long injuries to key players. Kev was out, as near as nothing, for the entire 2018-19 season. It was not his first lengthy injury, either. Beyond the 2013-14 season, Vin was out almost every season — and not for two or even three weeks. Not infrequently, six or so. Rod was out all last season, as near as nothing.
Other clubs have their injuries. Saka has just come back from quite a long lay-off, I think. Two or three seasons back, I think it was, Saliba was out for a long time, and it basically screwed Arsenal's title challenge (along with our excellence, naturally). Remember when Van Dijk was nobbled for the season by Pickford? Liverpool fell off a cliff. A whole succession of teams beat them at Anfield. Burnley did! We did!!**
The difference is that when we have a long injury to a key player, it doesn't seem to destroy our season. (I don't go along with the generally held opinion that Rod being out was the sole or even principle factor in our dreadful first half of last season — there was more, much more, to it than that. I've argued it elsewhere).
I don't necessarily agree that Arsenal have the strongest squad. All things being equal, I think we edge it. But they arguably have the best starting eleven this season, if everyone's fit, and they are hellishly difficult to score against. I think they have a weakness in goal — Raya is not as good as Donna — and it will be exploited as the season goes on.
But as the season goes on, everybody gets deep into three, even four, competitions, and that's where we'll see who's who. And assuming that everybody comes back — Ait Nouri, Khusa, Rod, Johnny stays fit barring odd spells of two to three weeks out — I think we'll be strong.
I still have Arsenal favourites. The argument that “Oh, they always bottle it” is only good until, well actually, a team don't bottle it. If there's a season for them to win the league, it's this one. But we'll be in the argument. So will Liverpool, current form notwithstanding. It's the usual suspects.

Edit: if Erling were to get a bad injury and be out for the rest of the season, or even a large part of it, it would certainly ask a big, big question of us.

** Done a bit more work on this. Honesty requires me to say that Liverpool had a cartload of injuries,which I'd kind of forgotten about. Not just Van Dijk. At one point they had their entire starting back line out. Rather like us last season. And we know that their full backs were key to them scoring, because they never had much of a midfield. Van Dijk was obviously the key injury, but there were many others.
 
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Going to be a really tough one this, and I reckon it's a perfect test of where we currently are. I reckon we can go to Villa Park and give them a tonking, but also wouldn't be at all surprised to lose ffs.
 
Will be a good barometer of where we are at, tough game where we need to be focused for 90 mins. If we want to be challenging for the title we need a win, or worst case a draw.
 
Withnail said:
Arsenal have the strongest squad and are obviously favourites, but City just need to keep on their tails as much as possible. I think we will get better as the season progresses and once players like Reijnders and Cherki get up to speed we will see a more slick and dynamic team.
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Yeah .....both of those two have not really shown wha they are capable of - for different reasons.

I think Reijnders has been a bit hit and miss but has undoubted quality and his most recent performance vs Everton I think was one of his all around best so far...he was far more involved all over the pitch....defensively more importantly as he hasnt looked good at that upto that point. He clearly needs to be a bit better in front of goal as well (going off Peps comments) but i think that will come quite naturally.

Cherki just looks so smooth whenever on the pitch....question over whether he can get upto speed with the intensity he needs to work at need to be answered (but there isnt any reason he cant - its about his application more than anything) - he has undoubted talent though
 
Pep response did not instil me with confidence on Nico availability for Sunday. Say will decide tomorrow
 
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