Hostedenis

I so hope he proves you wrong!

And here's what the APLT looks like after two games: And the progress lines: City is still hiding behind Liverpool. We're on -3, and so are Spurs. I think we all felt the same after the Etihad game, and all that should be said about it has been said the last few day. Our team, players, manager and board have been criticized and discussed on here, and rightly so. They're now reacting with the purchases of Baba and Pedro, and hopefully they turn out formidable players and not just panic buys. The season is still long boys, nothing lost. And I'll say it again: Win the next three games and we'll have ten points. Although we shouldn't underestimate West Brom away, definitely not.

He realized he wasn't good enough after 10 minutes

Do not agree. I thought after half time the players came out of the dressing room with more confidence and better play! Until City marked their second goal, that is. But still, I liked the way they still went for it. Don't forget they were - albeit not many - creating chances like the Ramires offside goal or the Hazard shot from close range on Hart. But yeah, overall, lots of problems that need to be addressed and not a good day.

I agree we have a problem, and I agree with a lot of the criticism on here, but I wasn't wrong when I said there's a meltdown. Opening threads like 'who's to replace Mou?' and stuff like that is pretty overreacting. We've lost to City, big deal. I don't like it but that's the way it is and there's still a big part of the season ahead of us. Asking for the head of the manager that just got us the league is crazy. I agree that there's stuff wrong, and we should work on that. A lot was wrong and should be fixed, your criticism is not misplaced. But the way some people here are saying Mou is past it or can't do it for a third season, people claiming Hazard isn't good enough or saying there're lots of better players, people criticizing Willian, ... Close to RAWK stuff this. I've said it before and I'll say it again, even before Swansea I said I'd take a 9/15 for our 5 opening games.

My god i thought these meltdowns only existed on RAWK!

Could it be that Ramires is playing on the right wing, Willian on the 10 and Cesc in the pivot? Probably not but a man can hope. Ramires would help cover Iva's side and I like Willian on the ten. Not sure how I feel about Cesc on the pivot against City though

I'm strangely excited by this guy

No same here but the same could be said about Azpi and he turned out to be quite the signing!

Here's what happened to the better teams after the first matchday: Only 1 team played to par (United) and two teams even performed better, and won difficult away games where they actually could've dropped two points and remain on course for a 90 point season. We performed sub-par, against Swansea we should always try to get the 3 points. But, considering the circumstances, I'm glad we didn't lose as we were ten men up and Swansea were playing very well. And it could've been worse, just look at Arsenal who go down three in the APLT! Here's what the graph looks like at the moment, but it'll need some more time for all the teams to become visible, some teams are "covering" other teams. We're on the same course as Southampton, and City are on the same course as Liverpool. And I've said it before, I'll be happy with 9 points out of 15 for our first five games. That still puts us on par and on title-winning form. So I wouldn't be too shocked or disappointed if Mourinho goes for a draw at the Etihad. Although 2/6 looks like a horrible start, if we get a 9/15 from then on we'll recover. But a win at the Etihad would be great for morale! And some people on here need a boost in morale! Sheesh the pessimistic stuff I've read the past few days! Come on fellow blues, there's an entire season ahead of us and an away draw at Swansea isn't that bad.

Arsenal fans, what's the score?

We played Schwarzer that day!

Thanks Jason that's exactly the point I was trying to get across couldn't have said it better myself. And no, it isn't fine under any condition, but it's bound to happen somewhere in the season (no one expects us to get 114 points right?) and Swansea today were very good and had a man more and I'm glad we didn't lose. Rather we drop two points like this, fighting in the end and with a man less, than get a lucky win today but drop two when we draw against a very dull Watford at home while we don't create any chances because we're not even trying for example.

If we don't win the season in May, I'm sure there'll be other games were we will have lost two points and thus not this game (alone) but probably worse games to blame. We became champions last season as well, even though drawing at home to Burnley or even losing 3-0 away at the Hawthorns. Those results are worse than drawing to Swansea at home. And yes, dropping two points at home is fine. It'd rather have won the three points, but so be it. The season isn't over yet. Sheezh, the drama on here! I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll be happy with 9 points out of a possible 15 for our opening three games. Sure, I'd rather have more. But as long as the team is trying and fighting I prefer to stand by them instead of go on the moaning bandwagon that seems to pass through these forum often the last few days.

No all that does is indeed sound crazy. Chill ffs it's only the first game of the season

Hat off to Swansea, they played very well. Montero was dangerous, and their new signing Ayew or whatever you spell it could turn out to be a hell of a player! There were positives and negatives to be seen in this match. What does get on my nerves are the many negative people on here. Yes we didn't win. But we didn't lose either. I thought Oscar played a great game, and I'm not his biggest fan (not against playing him either, kinda neutral). I thought Willian played well, not horrible as some of you are saying, but he had a brainfart when he played Gomis onside. Can't believe the acceleration he still has after 85 minutes. Hazard was invisible, until the last 15 minutes when he switched on the engine (too late). I thought Courtois made some great saves, right up until he as well had a brainfart that led to his red card, the penalty and ultimately the draw. Biggest positive of the match: Begovic. He can win us some points and (although based on 1 match) I already feel a little more comfortable with him in the goal. I liked Costa's play, Azpi en Matic were good as well. Iva was horrible. A point is won, we didn't lose, on to the next match. Sure, three points would've been better, but what're you gonna do?

We have difficult opening fixtures: three par one games in the course of five games (although West Brom shouldn't be that hard, we do have a terrible record at the Hawthorns). This actually means (according to APLT) that if we start our league campaign with 9 out of 15 points, we're still performing to par and actually on title winning course! Manchester City and Liverpool have equally hard opening fixtures (3 difficult games in 5), I wouldn't be surprised to see Arsenal, and to a lesser extent Tottenham or Man United on top of the regular table after 5 games. If we can get 9 or more points (preferably more) from our opening 5 games, we should be good. And finally, the league is back! Can't wait till tomorrow!!! :blue scalf:

Jose, is that you? You’re ruthless, cunning and won’t let anything get in the way of your team succeeding. You scored 94 out of 100 There's not always the option I'd prefer though

This thread is for the Alternative Premier League Table, for the season 2015-2016. This is a continuation of my previous APLT thread which ran over the last (half of the) season and can be found here: http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/19866-the-alternate-premier-league/ Some of you may have followed my thread the previous season, others may be new to this. For the newies, or those who need a reminder of the model, the APLT is all about a different way to look at the table, and tries to take into account that 3 points won against let's say for example Man City away, are more precious than three points won against let's say Watford at home. It makes an assumption that in order to win the league title, a team needs to win 90 points for the season. This can be achieved by winning all home matches and the seven easiest away matches (the three promoted teams and the 14th-17th ranked teams from the previous season) and draw the 12 remaining away matches. If a team does so, a team plays to par, and gets par results, similar to the game of golf. As in golf, par will be achieved more often than not, but sometimes points are dropped or gained in relation to par. The fixture list below for the top seven teams from last season indicates the hardest matches which are all par 1s (marked in colour), with the remaining fixtures all par 3s. During the 15-16 season, I will try to update this thread as soon and as often as possible and plot the results in relation to par for all the teams featured on a graph (an example of last season’s completed graph is below). If a team plays to par, the line on the graph will be horizontal, whereas dropped points will lead to a negative gradient and gained points a positive gradient. The green depreciating lines reflect the 90 point line and the 71 point line (a drop of 0.5 points per game, dropping to 19 points below par by game 38) to illustrate a 90 point and a 71 point season, a reasonable estimation of the points needed to win the premier league (90 points) or to achieve a top four finish and qualify for the champions league (71 points). Any team with ambitions to finish top four needs to be above the lower green line by the end of the season. If you'd like to know more about how it works, I suggest reading the first post of my previous thread, which can be found here: http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/19866-the-alternate-premier-league/ On another message board, where they also keep an eye on the APLT, there's an excellent post from a user called Nessy76 on RAWK. It's well worth reading if you are new to this, and illustrates how the APLT works. I never thought a Scouser could write something that actually made sense, but he has apparantly. He explains it by describing last season, as three games had been played:

Ok, that is like the understatement of the year. No surprise it's coming from you again. I get it, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but don't say stuff just to be controversial. He scored 19 or 20 last season, depending on which online source you use (I guess the difference is the goal he made against Everton which some count as an own-goal). He scored 14 in the premier league. I watched all of our PL games last season, and as I recall it (I may be slightly off here, but definitely not completely) he only scored one or two penalty goals. The entire season we were complaining that the refs weren't giving us any penalties (although we had decent shouts) and in the last game he gave a penalty to Costa to bring Diego's tally to 20, if I remember it correctly. He most definitely didn't convert "half of his goals" from the spot. Nonsense.

Kevin, why do I have a feeling you are behind this facebook page?

I do. Witsel retains the ball a lot better and it's almost impossible to take the ball from him. Schneiderlin can be easier dispossessed, but Schneiderlin offers more offensively. Witsel usually plays it safe, with wide passes.

These swap deals never happen!

I need a new Terry shirt! Will order the captain's shirt as soon as they're made available in the megastore! Don't really like the red in the yokohama logo, but the golden badge more than makes up for it! :blue scalf: