Jase

Fuck for the percentages! If worse comes to worst, we'll just go and win the Champions League!

That's exaggerating it, I think. I don't believe for one second that Leicester, West Ham and Everton won't stumble (potentially a lot) along the way.

It's the same media outlet but different person reporting it. And I presume Bayern aren't mentioned because they still have Lewandowski and if we're being honest, what competition is there really for Bayern apart from in the Champions League? One would imagine Haaland wants to experience challenges as well.

Would like to see Milwall get promoted. The chaos they would bring against West Ham etc.

It's a shame that we keep on seeing mostly the same teams coming back up.

Meanwhile over in the Championship, looks like Norwich are coming straight back up. 10 points clear at the top with 12 games to go...

WHY DID YOUR SLAVIA PRAGUE HAVE TO GO KNOCK THEM OUT OF THE EUROPA LEAGUE!?

Really can't help but notice that the Ross Barkley PR machine has gone very quiet... 💀

I see the American media have pressed the "panic button" over Pulisic's lack of game time under Tuchel...

Leicester drew with Burnley. Villa lost at Sheffield United.

An impostor Pulisic returned from holiday in Greece last summer...

LOL

Of course but my point is, not winning the head-to-head games against the top half teams is the main reason we are in the predicament that we're right now. We are not close enough to those above us and not able to pull clear of those below us. We have basically been relying on the others not beating much of the rest and are under pressure to win every game from here on in. Let's not also forget we contrived to draw 3-3 at West Brom and 3-3 with Southampton after being 2-0 up under Lampard too.

Buying so many players in one window was always gonna be a problem (all part of trying to "catch up" with the rest after the transfer ban), even more so during a pandemic season. No pre-season. Constantly playing a game every 3-4 days. Injuries. Players getting COVID-19 (one in Havertz in this case). New players struggling to adapt or needing time to settle in England. Put all those factors together and we ended up with what we have seen. Hopefully we will have a slightly more normal season next time and then we can judge the players better, although the Euros being on this summer is not helpful at all. On top of that, this is like maybe the first time or maybe the first time since 2012/13 or 2013/14 that we went out and bought so many young players, players who are not finished articles yet for the first team, which has led to the struggles/inconsistencies with them. Otherwise, we have tended to buy players in their peak, established players who can come in and make an immediate impact. Not really the case last summer.

A table featuring only results between the current top 10 teams in the Premier League...

It's not always the case. Luiz's contract was due to expire at the end of the 2018/19 season but confirmation of his extension was only announced in May 2019 - https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/david-luiz-signs-Chelsea-extension/13sy0pt52y08m17sjbm8nskguk. And there's also JT, whose contract was due to expire at the end of the 2014/15 season and the extension announcement only came in March 2015 - https://www.eurosport.com/football/premier-league/2012-2013/john-terry-extends-Chelsea-contract_sto4654695/story.shtml. Did we really want to extend Pedro's contract? He was like the 4th choice last season, only normal he wanted to leave/we decided to let him go especially when he wasn't getting any younger. Willian's situation went down to the wire, no? He wanted 3 years, we only wanted 2. Had the club buckled, the announcement would have been made like in July/August last season. I don't know what's the exact situation between Donnarumma and Milan but I also don't see any guarantee that he will be leaving them and I also don't see anyone really homing in on him (the story you shared said we're only monitoring). And there's also this quote from himself last November. Milan also working on the negotiation/contract of another player whose contract expires this summer...

If there's anything that's killing us, it's those fucked up results against top half teams we had under Lampard. Those results have basically put us under huge pressure to win basically every remaining game.

I don't believe those Donnarumma rumors. There's no guarantee that we will be able to offload Kepa this summer and it will be LOL if we end up with Mendy, Kepa and Donnarumma. I suspect this Donnarumma stories are just a classic ploy of getting a better new contract with Milan. We saw it with Neuer and 1-2 other players not too long ago.

Looks like CHO is fine after his injury at the weekend (top right picture, beside Havertz).

Actually, Aston Villa (a) is their game in hand, which has not been rescheduled yet I believe. Their game against West Brom is the one brought forward because of their FA Cup quarter-final tie on the March 20 weekend. Same reason as why our game at Liverpool was brought forward to this Thursday.

Matt Law wrote it. 🤣

But Wolves had won only 1 league game in 9 going into that match with us. They also hadn't kept a clean sheet in almost 3 months until then!