The Title Race - 2023/24

[ChicagoBlue]

I'm not convinced that yesterday was a one-off but equally other teams will take points off each other, especially as more teams will be involved this season.
This could be a season where 90 points is enough

Like you, I think we have seen the very highs and the most mediocre of lows in the last week.

The first 30 mins against Forest were sublime football of the highest order. Since then, we have played 4 hours of dross, using everyone available in the squad. Not a good sign!

Clearly, we need to trade Phillips for an actual Rodri sub, and we need something different upfront, because Haaland isn’t getting the service and he seems to think his job is to just stand in the middle and wait for the ball when we come against the 12 man defence.

 

[Prophet of Doom]

The state of some of the conspiracy nuts on here.

We lost yesterday cause we were shit. Not cause of any mad conspiracy between the PGMOL and the Premier League.

Ffs we benefited from a clearly offside goal against Fulham a couple of weeks ago. Where did that decision fit into the wild conspiracy ?

We’ve had the easiest possible set of fixtures so far - let’s see how we do when we start playing the better teams.

And we should all pray that Rodri stays injury and suspension free for the rest of the season

 

[Big Joe Corrigan]

That’s true a lot of the teams around us have played each other we played no one who’ll be going for the title.

As we are certainly not up to speed, and have been hampered by injuries, it’s been preferable to play those teams who won’t be involved in the title early in the season. Hopefully by the time the bigger games arrive we will have all the big guns back, although I think Arsenal will be too soon for us.

 

[mscenterh750]

The state of some of the conspiracy nuts on here.

We lost yesterday cause we were shit. Not cause of any mad conspiracy between the PGMOL and the Premier League.

Ffs we benefited from a clearly offside goal against Fulham a couple of weeks ago. Where did that decision fit into the wild conspiracy ?

We’ve had the easiest possible set of fixtures so far - let’s see how we do when we start playing the better teams.

And we should all pray that Rodri stays injury and suspension free for the rest of the season

Here’s what will happen.

The state of some of the conspiracy nuts on here.

We lost yesterday cause we were shit. Not cause of any mad conspiracy between the PGMOL and the Premier League.

Ffs we benefited from a clearly offside goal against Fulham a couple of weeks ago. Where did that decision fit into the wild conspiracy ?

We’ve had the easiest possible set of fixtures so far - let’s see how we do when we start playing the better teams.

And we should all pray that Rodri stays injury and suspension free for the rest of the season

We had a very similar set of so called easy fixtures last season up on till we played Liverpool and lost 1-0 on the 16th October. This is how we are early to mid season until March time, we tick along win games, draw games and lose games. Then when we hit March onwards we hit through the gears and eventually blow every fucker away and leave the chasing pack standing. This is what will happen again this season. We get injuries, we get shit results and we get poor performances early to mid season but when it comes to the business end of the season we time everything perfectly both with performances and results.

 

[Mcfc1.9.8.0]

As we are certainly not up to speed, and have been hampered by injuries, it’s been preferable to play those teams who won’t be involved in the title early in the season. Hopefully by the time the bigger games arrive we will have all the big guns back, although I think Arsenal will be too soon for us.

Spot on that to be fair

 

[alexmcity]

Here’s what will happen.

We had a very similar set of so called easy fixtures last season up on till we played Liverpool and lost 1-0 on the 16th October. This is how we are early to mid season until March time, we tick along win games, draw games and lose games. Then when we hit March onwards we hit through the gears and eventually blow every fucker away and leave the chasing pack standing. This is what will happen again this season. We get injuries, we get shit results and we get poor performances early to mid season but when it comes to the business end of the season we time everything perfectly both with performances and results.

This is likely to happen, but it is far from guaranteed. Nothing is set in stone. We started 16/17 with 6 wins and finished 3rd on 78 pts. Now we have a much better squad than in 16/17, but we had a very tiring season in 22/23 as well and we may suffer from more injuries and fatigue than normally. Think we are highly likely to win at least 85 pts. Much depends on fitness and nobody can see what the future holds. Think we are more likely to win the CL than the PL this season, but we are favourites for the PL too.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Here’s what will happen.

We had a very similar set of so called easy fixtures last season up on till we played Liverpool and lost 1-0 on the 16th October. This is how we are early to mid season until March time, we tick along win games, draw games and lose games. Then when we hit March onwards we hit through the gears and eventually blow every fucker away and leave the chasing pack standing. This is what will happen again this season. We get injuries, we get shit results and we get poor performances early to mid season but when it comes to the business end of the season we time everything perfectly both with performances and results.

Only twice under Pep have we won the league with a big run from early Spring onwards (2018-19 and 2022-23).

2017-18 our bug run was from the start of the season until Christmas (P22 W20 D2 in that run)
2020-21 our big run was from November to March (P19 W17 D2 in that run)
2021-22 our big run was from November to February (P15 W14 D1 in that run)

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

I'd have happily taken 18/21 points and first in the league in August. All the doom merchants would as well.

 

[Coatigan]

This sort of attitude is irritating me. There’s no such thing as over-celebrating. Good on them, I say. There should be more of it.

Since when did we become the celebration Police?

We’ve done a lap of honour after beating Newcastle and Forest this season, and we’ve had our own fans coming on here and saying it was embarrassing. It’s like celebrating wins is all of a sudden beneath us as a club and we look down on it just because we’ve won a few pots and pans.

Is it because it’s showing up our early leavers for not staying to celebrate with the team?

Was the Newcastle lap not the first home game with our fans since lifting the FA cup and CL, and more to do with that?

Agree with your point on celebrating btw.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Good chance we will be 4th next week

That's the spirit!