The Title Race 2022/23

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 81382
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I've said it before, but games in hand ruin the spectacle of the title race. Everything carries a caveat...."if we win our game in hand"......"we play twice before they next play"......etc. We have a ridiculous situation whereby Brighton will have three games in hand on most teams with 24 days of the season remaining. Alright, everyone will play 38 games eventually, but it's all a mess.
 
jrb said:
The only issue is team rotation due to the RM games.

Leeds & Everton.

Fat Sam will park every bus he can drive. And Goodison Park will be a bear pit.
Click to expand...
BFS won't be able to sign another 'keeper, and the current one has gone Weetabix.

Hopefully there will be daylight before the Everton game.
 
jrb said:
True.

But he’ll try and grind at least out 1 point.
Click to expand...
Of course, and I'd expect nothing less. I reckon 15 of our 19 home matches see teams trying to do the same. We have an excellent record against his teams over the last 12 years. If we play well, we win. As you say though, it's how Pep juggles things that is key. Most players can expect minutes in the next three weeks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jrb
york away to this! said:
Now look what you've done...
Click to expand...
I haven't done anything. I didn't say it was an impossible ask, but to try to change this team from an attacking outfit to a defensive one in such a short space of time seems unlikely. I really don't think he'll try to do anything too fundamental this week.
 
John Wayne said:
It's an extraordinary ask of Allardyce to transform this Leeds team in the space of three days.
Click to expand...
Fat Sam and Leeds the only thing they will be getting at The Etihad is an absolute pasting.

He can do whatever he likes with Leeds defensively parking buses on Saturday. That all gets fucked out the window when they go behind.

What a terrible appointment by Leeds.
 
City's next four matches are all winnable: West Ham, Leeds, Everton, and Chelsea, particularly as three of them are at home.

That would make it next to impossible for Arsenal. Any slip ups from Arsenal away to Newcastle or at home to Brighton, could already have effectively handed City the title.

City would still have a very tough away match at Brighton and a less problematic match at Brentford.
 
Millennium said:
Winning the next two games is crucial to win the title. We will be up by 4 points and Arsenal will face Newcastle and might lose some points under the pressure.
Click to expand...
First sentence fully agreed and it’s all that matters.
Quite a few posters today adding a second sentence similar to that one, but personally I’d rather not be expecting that to happen, or even articulating it, because if it then doesn’t happen it risks taking a bit of the shine off those 6 points we’ve just picked up. And it’ll get spun as another “momentum shift” or some such bull in the media, and even by a few on here.
As such I’m going into the weekend, regardless of our next 2 results, fully expecting Arsenal to win up in Newcastle, of which they are more than capable.

Short version - I’m being glass half empty on this ;-)
 
Millennium said:
Winning the next two games is crucial to win the title. We will be up by 4 points and Arsenal will face Newcastle and might lose some points under the pressure.
Click to expand...

The crowd will be right up for this game on Sunday, can Arsenal live with that? They haven’t in the past and their game tonight will have no reflection on how they cope at St James' Park.

Arsenal will face a totally different opposition and it will be interesting to see how they react to it. I think we'll be at them like we were against Spurs, we’ll be hungry, we’ll be direct and we will more than likely attack them as often as we can. I just hope we press them from the first minute until the last.

Our players will give everything to beat Arsenal who look like they could leak goals.

My only fear is Saka and Martinelli up against Burn and Trippier because neither defender has any pace. The key might also be how Arsenal cope with Isak and I’m not sure that they have it in them to stop him.

We’ll also have to find a way to stop Odergaard and I think Howe will find a way to do that. Personally, I would go with Joelinton as our number 6 and push Bruno further forward, I don’t know if Howe will do that. He’s more likely to play Bruno as the number 6 which he can do, he’s just not as full blooded into tackles as Joelinton.
 
Millennium said:
Winning the next two games is crucial to win the title. We will be up by 4 points and Arsenal will face Newcastle and might lose some points under the pressure.
Click to expand...
Agree. I think the run of three matches that were in Fulham, WHU, Leeds were/are all must win to apply maximum pressure and potentially give us a little margin for error/rotation in the run-in. Pep has even mentioned them all as a block, suggesting he thinks it too. As a minimum we could be 4 points clear on even number of matches with Arsenal then having to play away to Newcastle at the end of that run.
 
I was tempted yesterday to stick a £100 on Arsenal at 12-1, god I pray I don’t regret that, I’m still confident we will do it but the margins are much finer than everyone will have us believe.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top