The Title Race - 2023/24

[johncity]

Thankfully the fixture list has been kind to us with all our injuries and Peps issues. But now it's getting serious we need to get the injured players because we have a tricky run of fixtures coming up. It doesn't help that the teams around us are in good form right now.

So if all the teams are in good form around us what are we we are too don’t get some fans

 

[johncity]

So if all the teams are in good form around us what are we we are top don’t get some fans

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Pep said before the season he is happy if we are not too far off from the top come end of December, kind of can see now why he said it, I expect us to drop quite a few points as we start to play some top 8 teams.
he said that before we knew KDB will be out most of the first 20 rounds of PL.

we started off well, but mostly against the dross. the next 7 league games is significantly harder than the first 7 was. honestly can see us not getting more than 12-13 points from that 21. something like 1 or losses and 2 or draws easily in that run if we are not firing on all cylinders.

any talk us walking away with it, wish it was the case, probably with a better transfer window of us getting Bellingham (or Rice) we would have been closer to that and with KDB not being out so much, will be a big fight as Pool is stronger this season much more than last year, and can see Arsenal going hard again with a better squad than last year.
Spurs is surprisingly good so far, hope its not something they can build on up until January because if they do well they dont have any extra games and will be more fit than rivals.
at least United and Chelsea are utter shit.

next 7 league games starts with Arsenal away, huge fixture, Pep does not want to lose this to give Arteta belief, and momentum after the Community shield fluke loss.
problem is Gundo, KDB, Rodri trio is not available. neither Bernardo.
last year they would have all started this fixture.

Agree with all of this. This season will be very tight in my view. There are a lot of teams who can take points off each other. It is not just City/Arsenal/Liverpool slugging it out. It is impossible to predict. There will also be lots of injuries because most international players have just played too many games in the last 12 to 18 months.
If we are still in touch after Christmas/New Year then I would always fancy our chances down the final run-in because we are mentally stronger than any other team. But I think our best chance of a trophy will be another Champions League and I would be more than happy with that.

 

[alexmcity]

Agree with all of this. This season will be very tight in my view. There are a lot of teams who can take points off each other. It is not just City/Arsenal/Liverpool slugging it out. It is impossible to predict. There will also be lots of injuries because most international players have just played too many games in the last 12 to 18 months.
If we are still in touch after Christmas/New Year then I would always fancy our chances down the final run-in because we are mentally stronger than any other team. But I think our best chance of a trophy will be another Champions League and I would be more than happy with that.

Agree with almost everything, but it's better to avoid Klopp's mentality monsters meme. We tend to win tight title races simply because we have the best team tactically and technically wise (due to having Pep). Also, our tactics of having a lot of possession and controll is less physically taxing on the players and we are often fresher than our rivals in the final months. I think Liverpool were a little bit lucky to finish only 1 point off us in 18/19 and 22/23, our underlying stats were clearly better than theirs.

 

[lasereyes]

We will in January, we’re getting Mbappe…Real Madrid can’t afford him ;>)

Even if this pipedream came drew, wouldnt necessarily improve you. It's all about him and him only. There's a reason PSG have won nothing aside from the league that makes Scotland look competitive

 

[lasereyes]

Agree with almost everything, but it's better to avoid Klopp's mentality monsters meme. We tend to win tight title races simply because we have the best team tactically and technically wise (due to having Pep). Also, our tactics of having a lot of possession and controll is less physically taxing on the players and we are often fresher than our rivals in the final months. I think Liverpool were a little bit lucky to finish only 1 point off us in 18/19 and 22/23, our underlying stats were clearly better than theirs.

They benefited outrageously from ref decisions in both, otherwise we would have won both comfortably

 

[Heath Park]

Could be costly to lose to Wolves right before this run

Yikes!

 

[chesterbells]

Thankfully the fixture list has been kind to us with all our injuries and Peps issues. But now it's getting serious we need to get the injured players because we have a tricky run of fixtures coming up. It doesn't help that the teams around us are in good form right now.

At least the (yet another) upcoming two week international break after next Sunday gives our injured players some more recovery time.

 

[YatesA]

Yikes!

As long as Rodri is available for most I'm confident. This man makes everyone else around him better.

 

[Axel Freed]

Do you seriously think at least one of spurs arsenal or Liverpool won't be near the top come the end of the season?

Spurs won’t. Recency bias is a huge factor in people overrating teams.

The fact is there are very few title races which feature more than two teams. At the start of a season a handful of wins can put a team within touching distance of the top and that’s apparently enough for some people to consider them to be in the title race.

After 20 or 30 games a significant number of victories is needed to keep a team in contention at the top and by this stage most teams will have fallen by the wayside leaving only the genuine contenders to fight it out.