Will we win the league this season?

.db. said:
There are a few things missing:

Pure creators - I’ve mentioned before that Cherki created the most chances (3.7) per 90-mins in Europe’s top five leagues last season, and in the Europa League he created the most chances (46), most big chances (15) and got the most g+a (12) and he played three fewer games than Utd+Spurs players who made the final.

Goalscorers other than Haaland - Marmoush scored more goals (15) than Sesko (13) and Woltermade (12) and got more g+a combined (24) than Wirtz (22) in the Bundesliga last season and he left that league in January. Marmoush (7 PL goals) outscored all of Doku, Grealish, Gündoğan and Savinho combined (6 PL goals between them) in just five months with us last season.

Rodri - Godri!

^ all three of these players have been missing and are big things that we are missing as a team this season.

In recent years we’ve also lost creators and goalscorers in De Bruyne, Gündoğan, Álvarez, Mahrez, Cancelo, even Palmer and even McAtee popped up with as many PL goals for us last season as Doku did in 1,200 fewer minutes.
And mostly replaced them with players who are neither creators nor goalscorers.

Doku (0), Savinho (0), Bobb (0), BSilva (1), Foden (1), Reijnders (1)… aren’t scoring goals (Salah - who’s been crap - has scored as many as those 6 players combined) and other than Foden and Doku those same players aren’t creating chances either. And considering the minutes they’ve played (Foden 533; Doku 476) and the possession we have (1st with 61.7%), those two haven’t created that much (Salah has created as much - all three of them have created 16 chances this season - and again he’s been crap!)

And, again, there’s no Rodri.

There needs to be a collective step up from all our attackers in creating and scoring goals, but getting Cherki and Marmoush in the team will help that as they are what the other players aren’t.

If we can then get Foden creating and scoring at his best levels and get Rodri anywhere near fit, we’ll be a different outfit.

If everyone was fit, this would be my starting XI in many home games:

—————————Donnarumma————————
Nunes———Dias———Gvardiol———O’Reilly
———————————Rodri———————————
——Cherki——————Foden——————Doku
———————Haaland———Marmoush————

And the for the tougher games and away games:

—————————Donnarumma————————
Khusanov———Dias———Gvardiol———O’Reilly
—————————Rodri——Nico——————————
——Cherki——————Foden———Marmoush——
———————————Haaland———————————

(Obviously there’s rotation, suspensions and injuries to take into consideration, not saying that XI/XIII every week).
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Those back fours won’t be winning titles for me. Dias is not the player he was. Gvardiol is error prone, O’Reilly is safe but still not a left back and can be targeted and you never know what you will get with Nunes. Khusanov is very raw.

I think we will win a lot of home games but will falter away.

Let’s say 86 points is needed. We need 70 more points from 27 games (81 ok offer)

I just can’t see this side winning 22 games out of 27, drawing 4 and losing 1 for example.

It just seems such an unlikely scenario based on what we have seen so far and last season.

I dread to think what would happen if Haaland got injured.

A win on Saturday and the week after might restore some confidence but at the moment, for me, we don’t look good enough.
 
We are going to be too inconsistent over the course of the season to challenge IMO. We have lost to Spurs and Villa who are pretty poor.

Next season more likely with a few more top more top quality additions.
 
I don't think the last 2-3 games have told us anything that we didn't already know.

It's still Arsenal's to lose, but we've got the most lethal striker in world football and as long as he stays fit then we can beat anyone

However we also need a peak Rodri because otherwise the opposition enjoy too much possession and start to exploit the gaps behind our full backs in the same manner as Bournemouth's early disallowed goal and so many other chances and goals in previous matches


We'also get.more.out of Foden when Rodri plays plus we're stronger at defending set pieces
 
Millwallawayveteran1988 said:
Those back fours won’t be winning titles for me. Dias is not the player he was. Gvardiol is error prone, O’Reilly is safe but still not a left back and can be targeted and you never know what you will get with Nunes. Khusanov is very raw.

I think we will win a lot of home games but will falter away.

Let’s say 86 points is needed. We need 70 more points from 27 games (81 ok offer)

I just can’t see this side winning 22 games out of 27, drawing 4 and losing 1 for example.

It just seems such an unlikely scenario based on what we have seen so far and last season.

I dread to think what would happen if Haaland got injured.

A win on Saturday and the week after might restore some confidence but at the moment, for me, we don’t look good enough.
Click to expand...

Those are reasonable points, but you underrate the potential of the squad.

First off, the defence has been very solid since Donna's arrival: we have conceded 4 goals in 7 games. That's roughly 22 GA over 38 games, which is brilliant. And we were without Rodri for most of those games. We can get even better defensively wise.

In 20/21, we had a slightly worse start than this season. Many couldn't see City competing for the title. We won it with 86 pts while heavily rotating in the final months.

Yes, we aren't favourites. But we have played so far mostly without Rodri and Cherki.

Arsenal look very solid, but the season is long: Improbable things and injuries happen. They'll have a wobble or two. Everything to play for.
 
alexmcity said:
Those are reasonable points, but you underrate the potential of the squad.

First off, the defence has been very solid since Donna's arrival: we have conceded 4 goals in 7 games. That's roughly 22 GA over 38 games, which is brilliant. And we were without Rodri for most of those games. We can get even better defensively wise.

In 20/21, we had a slightly worse start than this season. Many couldn't see City competing for the title. We won it with 86 pts while heavily rotating in the final months.

Yes, we aren't favourites. But we have played so far mostly without Rodri and Cherki.

Arsenal look very solid, but the season is long: Improbable things and injuries happen. They'll have a wobble or two. Everything to play for.
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If we can transfer our home performances to away grounds then I will have some hope. It’s away that we don’t look anywhere near as good.

Next week is a very big game for us though. We have to win that I think.
 
No. Unfortunately we can't rely on our best player being available and it might be that he doesn't get back to full.match fitness until too late in the season.

If we were a bit luckier in that shit European competition we could rely on maybe a good flukey run to the final - like Liverpool and Real Madrid do. Winning the CL while being pish in the league.
 
IrishBlueSince92 said:
Probably give us a 15% chance at best of winning it now

In far too many away games I can see whats going to happen before the game, as its happened so often in the last 16 months or so, and we appear to have no plan to stop it. Or are incapable of.
Going into Villa away on Sunday i thought we'd lose, as we have done the last two years in insipid style. Although it may have been marginally better it was pretty toothless. Once we concede in these games we're more often than not, not getting back into the game. Happens too often away from home against a top half team.

The team was also all wrong on Sunday. Reijnders holding and four attack minded midfielders ahead of him. Doku been dropped recently after finally showing some great form is baffling. O'Reilly was in great form and then dropped. Nico could have played and was badly needed. Dias and Gvardiol had a good partnership going thats been broken up for some reason also. And finally Bernardo, i'm sorry I know he's been a great player for the club and is club captain, but he's like having a man less in a lot of these games. Not physical enough to stop us getting over-run in midfield.

Sunday's performance will likely be repeated a few more times this season when we visit Liverpool, United, Spurs, Bournemouth and Palace for example.
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Interesting that today we fixed all of this and looked a far better team
The team selection v villa cost us
 
Probably too early but nothing’s off the table. With so many new players it’s going to be difficult for us, but if the challenging teams, such as Arsenal and Liverpool, have a bad spell, theirs a chance to do a Leicester.

Moving forward, let’s see how these players combine. I see good signs, only losing one in twelve (think about that), but even more, a load of individuals coming together as a team.
 
Still think Arsenal will win it. They’re too pragmatic in how they defend and right now the league seems to be designed to benefit those type of teams - rather than those who want to score.

Not a slight against them - if you don’t concede then you can’t lose, simple as that.

Just a shame, I’d rather see teams who want to attack and score goals and be entertaining win things.
 
Much worse teams have won the PL. The problem is Arsenal who are performing extremely well and if the results match those performances for the remainder of the season then no I don’t think we will we will be second.

More than us improving Arsenal have to fall off quite a bit for us to actually win it.
 
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