Tomo

It is probably a stroke of fortune the competition is so shit (for top 4) while we go through the biggest rebuild of the Roman era but that's not really our problem, shit happens, in the 00s we would have turned the PL into the SPL if Fergie weren't around. If, buts, maybe's.

You've just reminded me that we're the visitors when they lift the thing I know the CL is unlikely to say the least, but in my view no half decent team can be ruled out in knockout football, however in the likely event of failure I would love a good run at it, the CL isn't just about winning it but making memories aswell.

Would be almost poetic if we knocked Liverpool out in the semi (while they won their first title for decades) and then went on to win in Istanbul. Would quite literally be a roles reverse of 2005.

I expected this at the start and I was the first to pour cold water on the title talk when we won six games in a row, it just wasn't happening. There's is an element of luck that there's no real strong rival (for top 4) while we undertake the biggest restructure of the Roman era but that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, top four this season will be a very good result and set us up well.

I worded it wrong i meant the 4 defeats in 5 games.

I hope you're right but I can't see it. I think he has a similar problem to De Gea in the sense he needs to be kept busy to be effective, there's just too many games now where we have kept an opponent at bay only to concede the first time they venture forward and that's a major problem if we want to build a title winning team. Courtois saved the shot in those situations Kepa doesn't seem too.

So by your reckoning, we can continue to stumble and fourth will remain ours? I think 70 points will certainly do it and 65 points possibly. I find it very unlikely we will have another run as bad as December, they had their chance.

Spurs tbh. If William Jose can fill Kane's void temporarily, what's stopping them? Not a chance, they've had Kane himself for the duration of 2019 and been in midtable form. Their current team should be in the dictionary next to the word stagnation.

Small problem though, we aren't actually giving away that many chances, last three games we have conceded 4 big opportunities, 3 went in and the other hit the bar.

One side will kick on eventually and it won't be us with a CF signing at the very least. Which one is capable of doing so?

This is why I laugh when people say top four is done after dropped points. For all our flaws six points clear of teams incapable of putting any real momentum together isn't to be sniffed at.

This one ain't over yet, Burnley have blew 2 goals leads at Old Trafford in back to back season's and if United pull one back it will mess with their minds.

Yeah you would have thought lessons would have been learned from the Spurs game to not write us off in one of games but clearly not.

Don't really want another youth player in right now. The lack of patience and in some cases abuse the ones we've already promoted are getting is disturbing and I think we need to shield the other lads away from similar. Would rather we went into the market for one right now, even a mere solid one will significantly boost us.

It's probably my biggest pet hate in football picking on reputation and getting a bigger role than their performances in the present time deserve, I could understand playing Kante even off form if we still had our 17/18 options but we have perfectly good alternatives that have produced both results and good football without him. Another general example is Harry Kane, him while half fit replacing Lucas Moura in the CL final lineup was scandalous and I can already see him being rushed back for the Euro's and anonymously cruising through the tournament half fit

Deportivo La Coruna, that's a name I haven't heard for while.

Hopefully Lampard subbing Kante off is not punishing him for the slip but instead finally acknowledging he shouldn't be untouchable and in games we have to take the initiative there's simply better options. We simply have to be looking at a Jorgi/Kova/Mount or Jorgi/Barkley/Mount midfield in shithouse situations like this (swap Barkley for Ruben if by some miracle he's up to full speed anytime soon).

I never at any point said we will win the league next season, but it also aptly demonstrates that were not heading in a black hole of irrelevance either. City were conceding way way more than they usual would due to Bravo being unable to save a thing (for example we escaped from The Ethiad with a 3-1 win despite being outplayed thanks to him) it was fairly clear even then they were going to be formidable once that was fixed and they were. As I said XG is about as close to accurate foreshadowing as it's possible to get and it suggests that things are noway near as bad as it looks now just like it wasn't as good as it looked when we won 6 games on the spin that led to the unrealistic expectations of a title challenge. In terms of the match in itself I agree and have stated such numerous times, however people seem to be using this match as some yardstick of decline which couldn't be further from the truth.

Picking out part of my post and ignoring the overall context.

Frank has over egged the chances we've been creating and wasting during the bad results in December however last night it was a legimate excuse (the graph below). People will no doubt counter me saying "oh XG doesn't change things" and in terms of the result you would be right but it's as accurate as you can hope anything to be in terms of foreshadowing the future. For example, according to XG City were going to dominate the league as soon as they replaced Bravo, they were right. Spurs were going to drop like a stone at some point, they were right. We were going to fall after our 15 title, they were right. United were going to fall in Jose's third season, they were right. Emery's spell at Arsenal wasn't sustainable, they were right. Liverpool were not far off a title challenge post 17/18, they were right. Infact I can't remember any times it foreshadowed things inaccurately, not spectacularly so anyway. It's incredibly frustrating that were conceding nearly every chance we concede and waste so many openings, but 99% of the time if you're regularly outperforming or underperforming your XG you eventually even out.

Needs to be looked at with more context. In the context of last night's game obviously it's pointless, but if teams keep being reduced to two shots against us we will win more than not. It's was very much our fault we dropped two points but as I keep saying, calling the overall performance poor makes me think my theory people judge their view on a game by looking at the result and nothing else have legs.

That's easy to say in hindsight but if we go back to August people were taking the piss out of our squad and saying we would be lucky to even make Europe. Arsenal, Spurs, Wolves and even Everton were all widely expected to finish above us.

Levy sacked Redknapp after a 4th place finish, Ramos less than a year after a trophy win, sacked AVB months after a record points haul for them and Sherwood despite his best ever points return. To suggest they were this happy clappy club merely happy to get by couldn't be further from the truth. Now you're changing the goalpost, you said there's been no real decent performance since the international break, that was a point of proving otherwise. As I've already said, when you're starting to build a team around inexperienced players a bit more context is needed. Are you implying we should have the same win or bust expectations that we would have the old guard or even Costa/Cesc/Courtois were here in their pomp? Furthermore CL football isn't as important to players as it use to be, Zlatan, Pogba, Kante, Aubamayang, Pepe, Kovacic, Jorginho, Di Maria, Luiz (twice) all gave up CL football to join teams outside of it. Quite frankly if a player with 13-15 years of his career left is that shortsighted to chose a club on the basis of what could only end up being six games, then meh.

That's the one thing I will say Lamps should have done better on, breaking up the Jorgi/Kova/Mount trio when it was working so well has been a contributor to our fall from grace. Watford away was in my opinion our best PL performance for years (the close final scoreline was criminal injustice) and the catalyst was that trio, it's absolute madness we've only seen it once since.

Also regarding Kepa's stats, in a perverse way they can also be cause for hope if we sort out his replacement soon. Why? Because it means we aren't conceding as many chances as the goal against collum suggests, which means our defensive issues could be a lot more fixable than we think.