Will we win the league this season?

[BlueMoonRisin’]

Still think we'll piss it by 10-12 points.

Hmm. More like you've been on the piss by 10-12 pints; )

 

[Gundoggin]

Bit of a strange start to the season for me no team looks outstanding apart from City in the opening game at Wolves . Dippers look to have gone backwards despite spending a billion and their defence is woeful. Arsenal are the perennial bottlers and Newcastle are a mess . Spurs look the most organised and physically fit side so far but have had a long pre season and they are Spurs aren’t they ! All set up for a very interesting season imho

 

[warringtonblue]

Bit of a strange start to the season for me no team looks outstanding apart from City in the opening game at Wolves . Dippers look to have gone backwards despite spending a billion and their defence is woeful. Arsenal are the perennial bottlers and Newcastle are a mess . Spurs look the most organised and physically fit side so far but have had a long pre season and they are Spurs aren’t they ! All set up for a very interesting season imho

Fucking hell, both of last nights teams look a million miles in front of us, in fact, Newcastle shown everything that was missing from our play on saturday, movement, passion, energy and a desire to win.

 

[blueparrot]

Fucking hell, both of last nights teams look a million miles in front of us, in fact, Newcastle shown everything that was missing from our play on saturday, movement, passion, energy and a desire to win.

No, they didn't.

 

[supercity88]

It's going to take time for us to gel and develop our current style of play. But I fear we'll be too far away before we hit our stride. Arsenal or Liverpool this season, and it will be interesting to see what happens next weekend. I'd favour Arsenal even if they are bottlers. Early days for all teams but to be 2-0 up against ten men as the dippers were would be hugely concerning, even if they did still win the game. Adding Guehi in would improve them vastly though.

For us, we could still challenge and Spurs came at a bad time. We're nowhere near fully fit and I also thought Pep made the wrong choices in playing Marmoush wide left and Rico at RB. Rico can only play if we're likely to dominate the ball, and with the midfield swapping Bernie for Cherki we were always going to lose a bit of control.

We've got some great players and we're in a better place to challenge. But Brighton away then the rags need to be two wins and we'll be in a better position to judge once we've played Arsenal.

 

[Craig]

No, they didn't.

Well, one way Liverpool did and the reason they have 6 points to our 3 is they were clinical. We had as many chances as Spurs Saturday (if not more) as bad we were. As usual though we aren’t clinical

 

[jaiguruKun]

It all depends on Rodri, he's still by far the best player in the league when fit and on form.

 

[blueparrot]

Well, one way Liverpool did and the reason they have 6 points to our 3 is they were clinical. We had as many chances as Spurs Saturday (if not more) as bad we were. As usual though we aren’t clinical

I don't know what will happen this season I know it will take a while for us to gel consistently, pretty sure we'll finish above Newcastle and we might might not finish above liverpool but we won't be far off.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

It's going to take time for us to gel and develop our current style of play. But I fear we'll be too far away before we hit our stride. Arsenal or Liverpool this season, and it will be interesting to see what happens next weekend. I'd favour Arsenal even if they are bottlers. Early days for all teams but to be 2-0 up against ten men as the dippers were would be hugely concerning, even if they did still win the game. Adding Guehi in would improve them vastly though.

For us, we could still challenge and Spurs came at a bad time. We're nowhere near fully fit and I also thought Pep made the wrong choices in playing Marmoush wide left and Rico at RB. Rico can only play if we're likely to dominate the ball, and with the midfield swapping Bernie for Cherki we were always going to lose a bit of control.

We've got some great players and we're in a better place to challenge. But Brighton away then the rags need to be two wins and we'll be in a better position to judge once we've played Arsenal.

I agree about Rico, but presumably the reasons for his selection are linked to your assertion that we're nowhere near fully fit, and we can't blame anyone but ourselves for that.

However,.as I posted on another thread, we're now paying the price for witnessing Walker's slow decline and doing sod all about it.

 

[Pepmanc]

Maybe next season when everyone has settled in.

 

[paulchapo]

No. We are a squad in transition with too many new players who haven't played in the premier league, which will be a different ball game to what they are used to. We also have new coaches so we are experimenting with different tactics. Add on a new keeper who sadly looks totally out of his depth at the moment and I just think it's a step too far. Of course it may all click and I could be totally wrong lol.

 

[Mancini’s Pastilles]

Who do you think we should sign to address the right back issue ?

Im sure if our transfer team look hard enough theyll find someone who improves us. Of top of my head. I could think of

Molina
Vanderson
Gusto
Ryerson
Dumfries
Bah
Stanisic
Vagnoman
El Hilali
Mingueza
Cash

Everyone of these improves us and all would be available for a fee we could afford. So no suitable right backs being available narrative is bollocks

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

Im sure if our transfer team look hard enough theyll find someone who improves us. Of top of my head. I could think of

Molina
Vanderson
Gusto
Ryerson
Dumfries
Bah
Stanisic
Vagnoman
El Hilali
Mingueza
Cash

Everyone of these improves us and all would be available for a fee we could afford. So no suitable right backs being available narrative is bollocks

To be fair all of those players, are either completely unproven in the premier league or haven’t played at the top level. There’s not guarantee at all they’d work out

 

[Mancini’s Pastilles]

To be fair all of those players, are either completely unproven in the premier league or haven’t played at the top level. There’s not guarantee at all they’d work out

For the price theyd cost mate well worth a gamble and id argue all are better than lewis and nunes at RB

 

[TFC]

Earlier in the thread I was all gung ho (new season and all that). Saturday has once again just reiterated the point that if we dont sort this defence out, we'll struggle to challenge. We need some consistency in that back line and because of injuries no proper RB etc, just doesn't look like we'll get it.

Hoping that if Donnarumma comes, he'll bring a little confidence, but honestly I'd rather see him fucking boot it up towards the big man that try to play a game with his feet that he's obviously not comfortable with. Let the outfiled players worry about sideways passing and twatting about with the ball.

But can we win the league? Too fucking right we can ;)

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

Not this season. We’ve made too many changes and we’ve lost some world class players (either sold or through form) with lots of experience over the last few windows.

We’re in transition and should expect an up and down season. We need to be patient with our young team.

I’m not sure about our transfer policy though, as it feels we’re trying to shoehorn players into the side and we also constantly keep changing the line up, which means our team isn’t settled at all.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

When we did win it, we went with the mantra one game at a time, how about running with that.

 

[daztrueblue91]

It's now obvious we haven't changed since last season, it's obvious how to beat us, Thomas Frank has shown every top 10 team who have the players to execute it.
It's obvious Pep still intends to play a high defensive line with slow defenders who struggle to get back.

The next three games will tell us a lot about where we’re heading as a team. Pep’s record against Brighton, United and Arsenal has been poor over the last few seasons and this is the chance to turn the corner.

The Spurs game looked like a side who had a full preseason against a side trying to find their legs. They pressed and bullied us and deservedly picked up the three points. However, we gifted them the second goal and missed at least three piss easy chances. On another day, we win that game a bit like Liverpool did last night.

I also think people need to stop blaming the board and transfers for the current state of play. Pep has the tools needed to compete. We cannot moan about the lack of pace at the back when we have Khusanov and Nunes, both who have sprint times amongst the fastest in the league, on the bench.

 

[TonyM]

Bit of a strange start to the season for me no team looks outstanding apart from City in the opening game at Wolves . Dippers look to have gone backwards despite spending a billion and their defence is woeful. Arsenal are the perennial bottlers and Newcastle are a mess . Spurs look the most organised and physically fit side so far but have had a long pre season and they are Spurs aren’t they ! All set up for a very interesting season imho

Against Wolves we were hopeless for the first 20 minutes at creating strong goal scoring chances. And later Pep said we were poor in the second half.

Obviously there were shining moments by a good few players but it wasn't an outstanding performance by any stretch of the imagination imo.

To be fair, we need more games to see if we can consistently score multiple goals per match. Seems unlikely to me. Unfortunately.

 

[Akira]

Liverpool won't run away with it this time, their defence looks atrocious. We aren't fully stable yet, so tough call on our own chances. Which leaves Arsenal with a great chance this season to win it, but Arsenal is Arsenal.