GWT: PL Matchweek 19

[Natey]

United isn’t as good as they’ve been, but they’re certainly dropping points they shouldn’t.

Their record against bottom half sides is terrible and those are games they should win the large majority of even if they’re not the United of the 90s, 2000s, or early 10s any more.

I mean it happens. Wolves would have been a Champion's League team if they could have not lost to the bottom of the table teams last year

 

[Burner Account]

Clive Tyldesley is a fantastic caller of a football match

 

[The Abusement Park]

Also am I the only one that thinks Ederson is overrated?

Nope. He’s elite on the ball and is the closest rival to Neuer in recent times. But as an actual goalie and shot stopper he’s mid table level at best for me.

 

[YNWA14]

Teams are underperforming due to various reasons?
Barça and Madrid have average coaches and now it's showing, Atletico lost a lot of talent.

Bayern sacked Kovac and Dortmund has a bad coach.

City sucks defensively and United/Arsenal/Tottenham have been heavily underperforming, 2 of their coaches already sacked.

Juventus has been the same as always and Inter has been much improved with Conte, Lazio and Roma looking good too.

Ligue 1 is another cakewalk for PSG and Marseille looks better but Lyon is sitting at 12th currently.


I don't care that the PL has more talent overall than last year, teams are not playing up to the talent they have and therefore a weaker PL than last year.

Just because top teams aren’t performing the way fans expect them to doesn’t mean the leagues are weaker. If anything it’s an indication of growth. As overall talent continues to grow more and more teams will get to a level where just having some of the best players doesn’t cut it; coaching, tactics and cohesion are starting to matter more and more (not that they haven’t mattered before, but certainly in the past top teams often got by on talent alone).

This isn’t an indication of weak leagues. To me that’s a fallacy; the top teams are having a harder times because parity is growing. It actually makes what City and Liverpool are doing in the last couple of years more impressive, IMO.

I just don’t buy into this slagging off of some teams or trying to belittle accomplishments by talking down other teams. Traditional teams are struggling in some ways but are still strong. It’s amusing to me how when City were dominating it was amazing and they were the greatest team ever but now that Liverpool are it’s a ‘weaker league’.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

No one not a single person here is diminishing anything it's just pointing the obvious really

 

[Live in the Now]

I just don’t buy into this slagging off of some teams or trying to belittle accomplishments by talking down other teams. Traditional teams are struggling in some ways but are still strong. It’s amusing to me how when City were dominating it was amazing and they were the greatest team ever but now that Liverpool are it’s a ‘weaker league’.

Man almost everyone thinks this is a uniquely great team. There is no other team in the last few years that everyone would say stuff like “I expect them to destroy every team” or “they’re so good they should be in the CL final at least” or “I can’t believe how many points they have already”. And there’s way more to quote too, but I’m at the hospital right now and can’t.

There hasn’t been a better team since Pep’s Barcelona. I don’t care what the fascists won after that time, doesn’t matter. At no point did they ever consistently do this. There is an inevitability to these results that has to be horrifying for the opposing team. Nobody is discrediting this team.

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

I mean its quite clear what the majority are saying right now... it was an LFC fan that said are they even a super team.

Side note, who are the fascists? lol

 

[Live in the Now]

I mean its quite clear what the majority are saying right now... it was an LFC fan that said are they even a super team.

Side note, who are the fascists? lol

RM

 

[Cassano]

Norwich got jobbed

 

[YNWA14]

Man almost everyone thinks this is a uniquely great team. There is no other team in the last few years that everyone would say stuff like “I expect them to destroy every team” or “they’re so good they should be in the CL final at least” or “I can’t believe how many points they have already”. And there’s way more to quote too, but I’m at the hospital right now and can’t.

There hasn’t been a better team since Pep’s Barcelona. I don’t care what the fascists won after that time, doesn’t matter. At no point did they ever consistently do this. There is an inevitability to these results that has to be horrifying for the opposing team. Nobody is discrediting this team.

Barcelona was only dominant because it was a weak league and Europe was mostly weak at the time...obviously.

 

[YNWA14]

Wrong thread.

 

[The Abusement Park]

Yeah I’m not buying the league is stronger stuff this year. Sheffield United is top 6 by playing very defensive type football. Wolves looks like the same team last year(which isn’t a bad thing), Leicester looks great, but still pretty far off City/pool, United/Spurs/Arsenal are disasters, Chelsea looks decent but inconsistent and the rest looks pretty similar to usual.

 

[Vasilevskiy]

Barcelona was only dominant because it was a weak league and Europe was mostly weak at the time...obviously.

For the last time, this has nothing to do with your team. Liverpool would still be leading comfortably the league with all teams playing to their level

 

[YNWA14]

For the last time, this has nothing to do with your team. Liverpool would still be leading comfortably the league with all teams playing to their level

Top team aside my main point isn’t that the focus is on Liverpool (though again this wasn’t the narrative over the last two seasons where, aside from Liverpool, teams were performing poorly). The teams, in opinion, are not performing below their level...the level required to get results is just raising.

 

[hatterson]

Yeah I’m not buying the league is stronger stuff this year. Sheffield United is top 6 by playing very defensive type football. Wolves looks like the same team last year(which isn’t a bad thing), Leicester looks great, but still pretty far off City/pool, United/Spurs/Arsenal are disasters, Chelsea looks decent but inconsistent and the rest looks pretty similar to usual.

Chelsea looked decent for a while, but they looked no better (and often worse) and United, Spurs, and Arsenal over the last month and a half or so.

 

[Cassano]

Chelsea looked decent for a while, but they looked no better (and often worse) and United, Spurs, and Arsenal over the last month and a half or so.

With all due respect, I think they are clearly behind the other teams. They've won one league game in 3 months.

 

[hatterson]

With all due respect, I think they are clearly behind the other teams. They've won one league game in 3 months.

For some reason I thought they were still only a few points behind United/Spurs. Guess they’re a ways back.

 

[les Habs]

Good morning!

Here are the point winning totals of the Premier League winning teams this decade:

2009-10: Chelsea 86 (Utd 85)
2010-11: Utd 80 (Chelsea 71)
2011-12: City 89 (Utd 89)
2012-13: Utd 89 (City 78)
2013-14: City 86 (LFC 84)
2014-15: Chelsea 87 (City 79)
2015-16: Leicester 81 (Arsenal 71)
2016-17: Chelsea 93 (Tot 86)
2017-18: City 100 (Utd 81)
2018-19: City 98 (LFC 97)

The standard has changed. You need to build your team to have over 90 points now. I also think fundamentally we have a different definition of what makes a league up or down. Teams are dropping points to more unique opposition this year so the league is more balanced. City will probably still get at least 85 points. 3rd might have a bit of a buffer but 4th-8th will probably all finish very close to each other too. The big difference is at the beginning of the decade there was a Top 4, that five teams were competing for positions in. Now that has been expanded to a Top 6, and there are probably 8-10 teams in the mix for that. Because it’s a stronger league as a whole. The middle class was not sniffing 4th-6th earlier this decade.

Also remember, Liverpool was without their starting keeper for two months. That is a MAJOR injury. On a talent standpoint there was a major drop from Alisson (7th in BDO voting and best keeper winner) to Adrian, who was displaced as the starter at freaking West Ham. That could have torpedoed the season. Liverpool don’t get enough credit for surviving that.

Good evening!

With all due respect, those points totals are largely irrelevant and you didn't answer my question. So I'll do it for you. There are only two teams that can hit 89 points at this stage in the season (and this is all not factoring in today's results). Leicester and City. Neither team is on pace to hit 89 points based on the first half of the season. Still they could do so. To put that into perspective though, Leicester would need 50 points out of a possible 57 to do it. City need 51 points out of a possible 57 to do it. To that into perspective, Leicester had 39 points out of a possible 57 points in the first half of the season while City had 38 points out of a possible 57 points in the first half of the season. Now while I wouldn't say either couldn't do it, I certainly don't think either side will finish the season with 89 points. So to the point, this season is different as I've been saying and it's clearly a weaker league.

I'll add my list from yesterday and I'll add more "middle class" clubs.

• City have had some major injuries. Underperforming regardless of that, but two major injuries is nothing to sneeze at despite their depth. On pace to finish 24 points below last season.
• Chelsea have lost Hazard and were under a transfer embargo. Also have a very green manager who has never managed in the top flight. On pace to finish 8 points below last season.
• Spurs didn't do much in the transfer window apart from Ndombele and have a new manager already. On pace to finish 13 points below last season.
• Arsenal are on their third manager at the halfway point of the season and made only one significant signing (Saliba isn't in the team yet) whose minutes have been sporadic. On pace to finish 22 points below last season.
• Manchester United have been inconsistent and Solskjaer has been too static and ignorant tactically. They show up for big matches, but not for a lot of the other matches. They made some good buys in the transfer window, but also lost some players they failed to replace. Despite last season's slow start they're on pace to finish 10 points below last season.
• Wolves, a club I would call "middle class", spent 94 million net this Summer and are only on pace to finish 3 points ahead of last season.
• Everton, another "middle class" club, are on their third manager of the season. They only spent 40 million net more than the previous Summer, but then their only significant departure was Gueye. They are pace to finish 10 points below last season.
• Leicester I already covered and are the only real exception here. The are on pace to better last season's points total by 26 points.
• West Ham, another "middle class" side, on pace to finish 14 points worse than last season.
• Watford with a new manager and on pace to finish 24 points below last season.
• Crystal Palace on pace to finish only 3 points better than last season.
• Newcastle, having a better season than most expected them to have, only on pace to better last season's points total by 5.
• Bournemouth are on pace to finish 5 points below last season's points total.
• Burnley are on pace to finish 8 points ahead of last season's points total.
• Southampton are on pace to finish 3 points ahead of last season's points total.
• Brighton are on pace to finish 4 points ahead of last season's points total.

Collectively the "middle class" clubs highlighted are on pace to finish 1 point worse than last season's points total. Factor out the major movers, Leicester and Watford, it's 3 points worse than last season. And again, this doesn't include the "upper class" clubs who collectively are on pace to finish 77 points behind last season's points totals. Also, last season the "upper class" clubs still took the top 6 positions and this year the only club that currently occupies one of the top 6 spots is Leicester with little to suggest that will change.

It's really obvious that the Premiership is notably weaker this season.

I'll give you the Alisson point to an extent, but while he missed 9 matches, Sane and Laporte combined have missed 28 matches and that number will continue to grow at a rate of over 20% the time Alisson missed with each passing match day they don't play.

I think all leagues are weaker compared to last year except for maybe the Serie A.

And yes, Liverpool is a super team, they play like one most of the games and when they don't they still win it.

I think Serie A looks more competitive at the top, but I'm not sure I'd say it isn't weaker. Either way it's closer to last season than other leagues are.

Exactly. I don't think Liverpool look as good this season (yet) as they did last season, but they're still winning.

Teams are underperforming due to various reasons?
Barça and Madrid have average coaches and now it's showing, Atletico lost a lot of talent.

Bayern sacked Kovac and Dortmund has a bad coach.

City sucks defensively and United/Arsenal/Tottenham have been heavily underperforming, 2 of their coaches already sacked.

Juventus has been the same as always and Inter has been much improved with Conte, Lazio and Roma looking good too.

Ligue 1 is another cakewalk for PSG and Marseille looks better but Lyon is sitting at 12th currently.

I don't care that the PL has more talent overall than last year, teams are not playing up to the talent they have and therefore a weaker PL than last year.

That's the thing though, there wasn't that big an influx of talent to the Premiership this season. On top of that, even if one thinks that there was, you're not seeing an significant improvement by an club as a result. Also though, some talented players left the league as well.

Just because top teams aren’t performing the way fans expect them to doesn’t mean the leagues are weaker. If anything it’s an indication of growth. As overall talent continues to grow more and more teams will get to a level where just having some of the best players doesn’t cut it; coaching, tactics and cohesion are starting to matter more and more (not that they haven’t mattered before, but certainly in the past top teams often got by on talent alone).

This isn’t an indication of weak leagues. To me that’s a fallacy; the top teams are having a harder times because parity is growing. It actually makes what City and Liverpool are doing in the last couple of years more impressive, IMO.

I just don’t buy into this slagging off of some teams or trying to belittle accomplishments by talking down other teams. Traditional teams are struggling in some ways but are still strong. It’s amusing to me how when City were dominating it was amazing and they were the greatest team ever but now that Liverpool are it’s a ‘weaker league’.

And there you have it folks, the real reason why some think this year's Premiership is better than last year's, because it doesn't fit their fanboy narrative of their club's season.

No one not a single person here is diminishing anything it's just pointing the obvious really

Exactly, but it doesn't fit the fantasy narrative.

Man almost everyone thinks this is a uniquely great team. There is no other team in the last few years that everyone would say stuff like “I expect them to destroy every team” or “they’re so good they should be in the CL final at least” or “I can’t believe how many points they have already”. And there’s way more to quote too, but I’m at the hospital right now and can’t.

There hasn’t been a better team since Pep’s Barcelona. I don’t care what the fascists won after that time, doesn’t matter. At no point did they ever consistently do this. There is an inevitability to these results that has to be horrifying for the opposing team. Nobody is discrediting this team.

I would challenge you a little bit here.

• I don't expect them to destroy every team and they haven't destroyed every team. I've seen some wins or draws where they didn't look great. Either way, as @Vasilevskiy pointed out, they still got the result which is the sign of a title-winning side.
• Like I said, I think anything less than a CL SF appearance would be disappointing. Still the CL can be a real wild card and considering their SF and Final performances last season I would say it's clear that they can be beat. Every team can though.

I would say that Lucho's 2014-15 Barça side is up there. Treble winning side that had to beat City, PSG, Bayern and Juventus in the final stages of the CL. League was more challenging than this year's Premiership too.

I think Liverpool need to add some silverware to this team's cycle to... solidify their legacy. At this stage the CL win is all they have. They'll add a Premiership this season which helps, but Arsenal's "Invincibles" were always overrated and didn't have much to show for it. That said Liverpool are a fantastic side right now. And despite the top players they have in Van Dijk, Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Robertson, Salah, Mane and Firmino, the key to their success for me is that they play so well together as a team. The individual performances matter, but their strength is how they perform as a collective. That for me reminds me of Guardiola's Barça.

For the last time, this has nothing to do with your team. Liverpool would still be leading comfortably the league with all teams playing to their level

I would say they would definitely be leading. Comfortably, maybe not.