Will we win the league this season? No

Jesus, I sincerely hope you're taking the piss
Actually we should show some pride in this, it proves the club overall are still going in the right direction. Fantastic win for the U18's last night, and against the rags in the youth cup final. It's also this talent that we're raising and selling on that is helping us financially.
 
Palace v Liverpool a few years ago was glorious for us.
Palace at home imho is far more intimidating than Bournemouth, imho.
Bournemouth suspended Jiminez, their full back, last week for disciplinary reasons and had Ryan Christy sent off in their last match, so that's 2 1st-teamers out. Kluivert came back in the last match at Fulham, but he's been out for 5 months so can't be up to speed yet.
We won comfortably there last season - even though it was a close score-line at 2-1 for us - and they definitely aren't a better team 12 months on.
Fingers crossed, hey?!
We lost, it was 1-2 to them in the PL.


Although you could mean the FA cup tie that we won 2-1.
 
Main reasons we probably won’t win the league -

#1 Losing Gvardiol and Dias both to injury when Ake and Stones were injured. Having to recall Alleyne cost us 7 points in the league.

#2 Rodri’s return to fitness going badly. We could all see he wasn’t Rodri at the CWC. Wasn’t fit. Ended up getting an injury and missing 1/3 of the season.

#3 Transfer business. Maybe inevitable with the amount of turnover but the our bench is the leftovers not good enough to start rather than options to make an impact and change games.

#4 Carrying old injured players too long. This is really transfer business part 2. I’m going to be sad to see Stones, Ake and Kovacic all leave but we’ve basically been down 3 senior players all season because we held on too long.


If we do manage to win the title it will be the first one of Peps trophy where I feel like we’ve just outlasted the opposition by not being terrible rather than going out there and beating everyone into submission. Next season we’re going to be 10-15 points better.
 
Main reasons we probably won’t win the league -

#1 Losing Gvardiol and Dias both to injury when Ake and Stones were injured. Having to recall Alleyne cost us 7 points in the league.

#2 Rodri’s return to fitness going badly. We could all see he wasn’t Rodri at the CWC. Wasn’t fit. Ended up getting an injury and missing 1/3 of the season.

#3 Transfer business. Maybe inevitable with the amount of turnover but the our bench is the leftovers not good enough to start rather than options to make an impact and change games.

#4 Carrying old injured players too long. This is really transfer business part 2. I’m going to be sad to see Stones, Ake and Kovacic all leave but we’ve basically been down 3 senior players all season because we held on too long.


If we do manage to win the title it will be the first one of Peps trophy where I feel like we’ve just outlasted the opposition by not being terrible rather than going out there and beating everyone into submission. Next season we’re going to be 10-15 points better.
#5 refereeing inconsistency

#6 plain luck, we've had some margins fall the wrong way.

Hopefully ont of the two above swings our way and against Arsenal last two games.
 
#1 Losing Gvardiol and Dias both to injury when Ake and Stones were injured. Having to recall Alleyne cost us 7 points in the league.
I still can't get my head around why we didn't bring back a more experienced centre half.
Not sure if it was possible but Bah, Akanji or Reis would have been better options.
Simpson Pusey was back at the club, having returned from his disastrous spell at Celtic but had played for the senior team before.
All seems clearer in hindsight.
I'm not sure if Alleyne playing cost us 7 points though.
 
I still can't get my head around why we didn't bring back a more experienced centre half.
Not sure if it was possible but Bah, Akanji or Reis would have been better options.
Simpson Pusey was back at the club, having returned from his disastrous spell at Celtic but had played for the senior team before.
All seems clearer in hindsight.
I'm not sure if Alleyne playing cost us 7 points though.

I don't think he is specifically blaming Alleyne, more highlighting the fact that in games Alleyne played that was the outcome and had one of Gvardiol, Dias, Stones or Ake been fit things may have been different - 2pts more is all we need.
 
A gooner I was chatting to earlier told me that palace get £10m as part of Eze deal if they win the league. May be a wind up or exaggerated. But another reason why palace won’t try that hard.

Plus that is rather rich from them with all the accusations of non straightforward deal making!

Gooner was pissed off we had made certain that they can’t celebrate with their own fans now. Good!
 
Main reasons we probably won’t win the league -

#1 Losing Gvardiol and Dias both to injury when Ake and Stones were injured. Having to recall Alleyne cost us 7 points in the league.

#2 Rodri’s return to fitness going badly. We could all see he wasn’t Rodri at the CWC. Wasn’t fit. Ended up getting an injury and missing 1/3 of the season.

#3 Transfer business. Maybe inevitable with the amount of turnover but the our bench is the leftovers not good enough to start rather than options to make an impact and change games.

#4 Carrying old injured players too long. This is really transfer business part 2. I’m going to be sad to see Stones, Ake and Kovacic all leave but we’ve basically been down 3 senior players all season because we held on too long.


If we do manage to win the title it will be the first one of Peps trophy where I feel like we’ve just outlasted the opposition by not being terrible rather than going out there and beating everyone into submission. Next season we’re going to be 10-15 points better.

Main reason we arguably won't win the league is that we rebuilding our squad. And we have done it fantastically so far. I could not understand how You could missed this reason of all the reasons, when its a very strategic and dominant one.

We won Carabao Cup against Arsenal, could win FA CUP, we are in the title race and won some tough fixtures along the way like Anfield, against Arsenal etc.

Your points:

#1 Yes

#2 Rodri's return going far from badly. Setbacks after such an injury are perfectly natural, Rodri had better impact this season than anybody could realistically assume, what for example Pep many times warned us about saying that Rodri gonna be his older self around World Cup. Majority of people had simply unrealistic expectations as usually.

#3 Bullshit. Our transfers lately been good (Nico, Marmoush, Reijnders, Ait Nouri) or great (Doku, Cherki, Guehi, Semenyo, Khusanov, Trafford). Reis gonna be a fantastic player. Maybe some room for discussion on Echeverri, Savinho or Nypan, but they all still could end up as a good moves. You mixing transfers with injuries.

#4 Handsight is your king. Nobody would say before the season that Stones gonna be out practically all games and we should part ways with him. Stones, Ake and Kovacic would have had great impact if not for injuries. All of them been good when got some minutes, especially Ake. It was not a mistake to try to make them play this season, its been just unfortunate turn of events.
 
A gooner I was chatting to earlier told me that palace get £10m as part of Eze deal if they win the league. May be a wind up or exaggerated. But another reason why palace won’t try that hard.
I doubt any palace player is thinking of that
Just a pure coincidence that those 2 teams are playing in the last match.
Those are clauses out in many player contracts.

We may have something similar with Guehi and Palace
 
I don't think he is specifically blaming Alleyne, more highlighting the fact that in games Alleyne played that was the outcome and had one of Gvardiol, Dias, Stones or Ake been fit things may have been different - 2pts more is all we need.
Not blaming Alleyne but bringing him back may not have been the right choice.
He was playing well at Watford and seemed to be progressing well. Right now he's getting little experience.
If we weren't able to bring back any of the more experienced centre halves then we should have utilised Simpson Pusey or Mfuni as fill ins as both were already at The Etihad. Would probably have managed between them.
Alleyne got injured, Mfuni loaned to Watford and we ended up buying Guehi
 
Main reasons we probably won’t win the league -

#1 Losing Gvardiol and Dias both to injury when Ake and Stones were injured. Having to recall Alleyne cost us 7 points in the league.

#2 Rodri’s return to fitness going badly. We could all see he wasn’t Rodri at the CWC. Wasn’t fit. Ended up getting an injury and missing 1/3 of the season.

#3 Transfer business. Maybe inevitable with the amount of turnover but the our bench is the leftovers not good enough to start rather than options to make an impact and change games.

#4 Carrying old injured players too long. This is really transfer business part 2. I’m going to be sad to see Stones, Ake and Kovacic all leave but we’ve basically been down 3 senior players all season because we held on too long.


If we do manage to win the title it will be the first one of Peps trophy where I feel like we’ve just outlasted the opposition by not being terrible rather than going out there and beating everyone into submission. Next season we’re going to be 10-15 points better.
I hear you, but the problem is when you have players that are typically on long contracts you cannot simply show them the door because they've picked up an injury that's going to keep them out for a long time. Who's going to buy them?

Besides, there are no guarantees the replacements are going to hit the ground running. for example, to varying degrees, Reijnders, Gonzalez and Marmoush have had mixed seasons but some players need to play, some need time to settle in, and the entire squad has had to get used to playing with each other.

It's only really the past few weeks we have found what looks like a winning formula and that's perfectly natural, it doesn't happen overnight. When you're trying to replace top, elite players it's not as easy as a mid table team trying to replace like for like, they have a lot more options.

We still have to balance the books and you're never sure how long players are going to be out for. There's no point looking for something to blame, it's like last season, it happens and it's left us in limbo. We brought in two major signings in January, both of which were a gamble because again you don't know how quickly a player is going to settle or whether they'll crack towards the end of the season, not having been in a title race before.

Overall, with the number of changes we've made, many enforced, we have no right to reach two finals and still be in a title race with 2 matches to play. It's a magnificent achievement, and what's happening throughout the club, the success of the other teams, even the ladies team that the club could have ignored and treated as a sideshow, proves this club is still getting better and better. Just because we (probably) won't win the title again doesn't mean there's anything wrong. And who knows, we might just do it but even one trophy is a great achievement.
 
I have read repeated comments that Palace will rest everyone in advance of their final, well Villa didn't. I know the circumstances are not quite the same but even so I am expecting Palace to go strong against Arsenal.
 
A gooner I was chatting to earlier told me that palace get £10m as part of Eze deal if they win the league. May be a wind up or exaggerated. But another reason why palace won’t try that hard.

Plus that is rather rich from them with all the accusations of non straightforward deal making!

Gooner was pissed off we had made certain that they can’t celebrate with their own fans now. Good!
Just utter nonsense. Like the players give two fucks.

Of all the reasons for their players not putting a shift in, that is not one.
 

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