Next season, the strongest PL ever?

[SambaStyle]

Was quite disappointed with the quality outside of the top 6 this year.

But next season.

City will stay the same or improve possibly (hard to improve on 100 pts)
Manure will improve with 4-5 new top signings
Spurs will probably remain the same, losing 1-2 good players and buying 2 good players, more maturity of young team
Liverpool will improve with Keita and Fabinho, possibly Fekir signings.
Chelsea will improve with Sarri and a few signings you imagine (Conte lost his team)
Arsenal will improve under Emery and a few signings + full season of Aubameyang goals barring injury

Everton has to improve and finally make good signings, I think their new manager Silva will be good for them.
Newcastle should have some financial backing (or Benitez will leave), possibly new stupid rich owners
Southampton will be better (they will be scared straight from selling and not replacing properly now)

New promoted teams Wolves and Fulham have excellent players (Neves, Jota, Sessengon, Cairney) and play great football with super rich owners. Wouldn't be surprised to see either challenge for top 8 with investment.

Even teams like West Ham are showing ambition now with Pellegrini's hiring.

 

[Deleted member 81382]

It is if the rags or dippers win the league but if we win it, it's the weakest PL in history.

 

[KnaresboroughBlue]

Doesn't always work that way though. Teams always spend money on players that they think will improve them but it frequently doesn't really have the desired effect.

Many at this time last year would have thought the rags buying Pogba, Matic, Lukaku, Sanchez etc would strengthen them and have them challenging more than they actually did.

Should be an interesting season though.

 

[mat]

Man City - Ruining competitive Premier League seasons since 2018....

In 10 years our club had changed this league both financially and tactically for the better. The plaudits will say that about the dippers as its their year...

 

[bluethrunthru]

I expect our serious challengers to be the dippers - with Klopps amazing tactical nowse ( see Liverpool thread ) and what looks like his audacious adoption of the 0 - 10 -0 formation by buying all the midfielders in Europe and building a Trump-esque wall across the Midfield he will nullify opponents attacks and look to somehow hit them on the break to nick a goal - this will be hailed in the media as the natural evolution from Maureens massively successful " bore everyone to death and nick a goal " approach which brought so many trophies in the 17/18 season.

 

[Gazza]

1.Man City
2.Liverpool
3.Chelsea
4.Spurs
5.Arsenal
6.Man Utd
7.Newcastle
8.Everton
9.Leicester
10.Burnley
11.Southampton
12.Wolves
13.Fulham
14.Crystal Palace
15.West Ham
16.Watford
17.Bournemouth
18.Brighton
19.Cardiff
20.Huddersfield

 

[kaz7]

Last season we had the best list of managers in the top 6/7,turns out only pep and conte have any balls to win something

 

[Chris in London]

1.Man City
2.Liverpool
3.Chelsea
4.Spurs
5.Arsenal
6.Man Utd
7.Newcastle
8.Everton
9.Leicester
10.Burnley
11.Southampton
12.Wolves
13.Fulham
14.Crystal Palace
15.West Ham
16.Watford
17.Bournemouth
18.Brighton
19.Cardiff
20.Huddersfield

I watched the 2011-12 episode of the Premier League Years on Sky t'other day. One thing that struck me was that outside the top 6 (which is the same now as it was then) every single club in the league bar Everton in the above list has been promoted from the championship at some point in the 6 seasons since. Think about some of the teams we beat that season: Wigan, Blackburn, Bolton, Villa, Wolves, Fulham and of course QPR. Sunderland took four points off us that season (more than anyone else) and look where they are now. So of that 2011-12 season, 12 of the 14 teams outside the top 6 are no longer in the premier league. The others are Everton and Newcastle, who of course have been relegated but have come back up since.

The top half of the Championship tends to be populated by clubs that have been in the premier league recently. Sometimes they are yo-yo clubs like Norwich and QPR who are down for a couple of seasons, up for a couple of seasons and then down again. Sometimes it is a club like Bolton who have been in the premier league for a while until their bad season came along and they ended up getting relegated and now struggle to break clear of the pack. Sometimes it is a club Every now and then you get a team that goes into free-fall after it is relegated, like Blackburn, or Wigan or Sunderland, but mostly the relegated clubs come back up within a few seasons. (Even we did that.)

So we have a top six where you would expect the four or five teams in the Champions league to progress from the group stages into the last 16 without too much difficulty, and a bottom 14 where all the teams are pretty much at an equal risk of being relegated either this season or next. When you consider the fact that the newly promoted clubs tend not to go straight back down, three things seem clear to me: (1) there is not actually that much difference quality wise between the bottom half of the premier league and the top half of the championship (2) Every team outside the top 6 is highly likely to go down at some point in the next few years, with the possible exception of Everton, and (3) Our top 6 is the equal of any top 6 in Europe and collectively is quite possibly the strongest in Europe.

So when the OP says he was disappointed this (17/18) season with the quality of the league outside the top 6, I think he needs to get used to disappointment, because no matter who has gone up and who has gone down at the end of the season, the quality of the league next (18/19) season outside the top 6 is likely to be no different to this season.

And since every team outside the top 7 (including Everton) spends two or three years every now and then outside the money zone, that means the gap between the teams that never get relegated AND get European football every year, and the teams that get relegated every few years (that is, all of them bar the top 7) will steadily get wider and wider.

 

[CityInWashingtonState]

1.Man City
2.Liverpool
3.Chelsea
4.Spurs
5.Arsenal
6.Man Utd
7.Newcastle
8.Everton
9.Leicester
10.Burnley
11.Southampton
12.Wolves
13.Fulham
14.Crystal Palace
15.West Ham
16.Watford
17.Bournemouth
18.Brighton
19.Cardiff
20.Huddersfield

Man City
Liverpool
Man Utd
Spurs
Arsenal
Chelsea
========
Man City - incremental improvement in the squad; but we're miles ahead of the competition.
Liverpool will only get stronger next year.
Man Utd will improve too - but they're frankly a mess.
Spurs will likely tread water - good squad, very good manager, ownership unwilling to spend.
Arsenal - can't see much improvement; the board isn't willing to spend big and simply wants to earn money. 4th is the goal for this side.
Chelsea have a huge rebuild if they sign Sarri; next year will be a big work-in-progress.

 

[jamesha]

Pretty much agree with some of the previous posters.

• Same top six as last year with a slightly different order.
• Top six to move further away from the rest
• Two minnow teams will start well and their managers will be hailed as Manager of the Year in November
• Some team below the top six will spend boatloads of cash badly and their manager will be out
• Man United will be dull
• It will be Liverpool's year but they will not win anything and lose another cup final
• Raheem Sterling will be lambasted in the press for opening his front door