The English Football Thread

[yuvala 2,167]

Utterly not bothered by the fixture, just beat them all!

Yea TBH we cant really predict anything.. we dont know anything really.

[The only place to be 11,313]

As if Paul Lambert doesn't moan enough already...

Gotta be a favourite for first manager sacked.

[petre.ispirescu 4,928]

"Mourinho may well have a legitimate claim to call foul play when he sees what lies in the store for Chelsea. The games that take place on weekend after European games are usually the battleground for grievances and Chelsea's fixtures following their Champions League group games are as follows: Manchester City (away); Arsenal (home); Manchester United (away); Liverpool (away); Sunderland (away) and Hull City (home)."

Hopefully Chelsea will get a decent draw in the Champions League then.

Chelsea

Schalke/Shakhtar/Zenit/Basel

Olympiakos/Sporting/CSKA/Galatasaray

Steaua/APOEL/Salzburg/BATE Borisov/Anderlecht

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

A lot of people here focussing on the entire season. No matter the configuration to win the Premier League you have to be mentally tough and consider that no game is going to be easy. If you adopt the 'one game at a time model' the weight of it all won't impact as much.

We have newly promoted Burnley to start, they won't camp out inside their 18, they will want to come out and give the home fans a show. Whose hands does that play into? Chelsea with Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Costa, Fab and Matic? or Burnley?

COME ON CHELSEA!

[thekid9 418]

IMO we SHOULD win the league, but will fall short! (again)

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Hopefully Chelsea will get a decent draw in the Champions League then.

Chelsea

Schalke/Shakhtar/Zenit/Basel

Olympiakos/Sporting/CSKA/Galatasaray

Steaua/APOEL/Salzburg/BATE Borisov/Anderlecht

Pretty far distance to travel bro! those won't be easy

[Peppen 934]

IMO we SHOULD win the league, but will fall short! (again)

Yeah, unless Torres gets the nod ahead of Diego Costa or Lukaku, or whoever we bring in as a striker.

Without him winning corners like in Munich, working his arse off and providing loads of assists, how could we possibly win the League?

#sackJose #inFT9wetrust #rememberTHATcornerinMunich #FT94ever #TorresFC

[LAM09 7,062]

Decent opening game, but it have been better if we were playing at home. This year HAS to be our year!

[Barbara 15,149]

If we can get to the 22nd of November and be near the top then we've got a run through to the 11th of April where the toughest game is Man City (31/1).

That's TWENTY ONE matches where we should only face one top four team. The title can be won there. That's 63 points up for grabs.

Whilst our last 6 matches are toughies, 4 of them are at home.

I think that's a significant run. Going 21 matches, nearly five months without having a big match allows us to focus in the UCL while also being able to treat the league with the seriousness it needs.

Last year because of the little age of our key players, we had trouble focusing in the EPL matches prior to our UCL games, but we did fine in the EPL matches after the UCL games. If Mourinho can fix that in the team's mentality, it'll be a big step.

Please refrain from posting the full fixture list here. We are not allowed to do so.

Just post the link here or summarize it like TOPTB like has done above.

Never understood the reason of it and if it's not asking too much, I'd like to know why it can't be posted.

There's the typical 'winter slump'.

Except our winter slump comes in the fall, lol

Liverpool, City and United away are all directly after a CL group game. Just gotta hope we don't have a long trip to Ukraine or Russia before those.

Now, looking only in the matches prior and after UCL games I'd worry again more about the matches prior than the matches after it.

In terms of group stage, we have Swansea H, Villa H, Crystal Palace A, QPR H, WBA H and Newcastle A prior to UCL games.

Most of those matches are home and Palace away doesn't include a trip, but I'm not that much worried about distance we'll have to fly - although it's certainly still a factor - I'm more worried about the mental aspect.

We simply tanked the matches prior to the UCL games last season and we didn't have much trouble winning the matches following UCL. Following UCL games we won Fulham home 2x0, Norwich away 3x1, City home 2x1, WBA home 2x2, Sotom home 3x1, Palace home 2x1. Those are 5 wins and a draw compared to Everton 0x1 away, Spurs 1x1 away, Cardiff 4x1 home, Newcastle 0x2 away, West Ham 3x0 away, Stoke 2x3 away prior to UCL matches. Tthat's 3 losses, 1 draw and only 2 wins against Cardiff and WHU.

It's been very clear to me we lost the league last season with the wrong mentality as much as we did for the lack of a striker. There were matches were the players simply didn't put up a fight. They were apathetic and seemingly uninterested, I wanted to punch some sense in them. Mourinho needs to motivate but also demand more commitment from them especially in matches that happen before our UCL games.

And I have a really tough time believing that those fixtures are fair and not coolly calculated by FA. They make it very clear every damn season. Still it won't be enough to hold us back. I'm confident in a very good campaign and I think the 21 run in that TOPTB mentioned will be our biggest triumph in terms of fixtures. Let's just hope we approach those 'doable' matches with the same mentality we approach the big ones. That was out biggest setback last season and I hope the trophy-less season was a well lesson learned. If those players continue to pick which matches they're going to draw their blood and which they'll approach as if it was a walk in the park, they can find another park to walk... we should approach every match with the same focus.

no excuses, we have to win the league, although i don't think we'll win it

we've massively underachieved in the league during the Roman era

Not sure if you're serious, but in the most competitive and difficult league in the world, we won three titles in a decade and you think that's massive under-achievement? I think you're dismissing our competition and the strength of this league. This isn't Ligue 1 or Euredivisie. Or even La Liga and Calcio that normally have two teams running for the title, so it's a 50/50 run. This league is much closer and therefore having three titles in 10 attempts seem like just an amazing achievement of a team that literally went through a make over. You don't simply inject money and the titles start piling up. It takes time and I think we did very well given our competition...

[thekid9 418]

Yeah, unless Torres gets the nod ahead of Diego Costa or Lukaku, or whoever we bring in as a striker.

Without him winning corners like in Munich, working his arse off and providing loads of assists, how could we possibly win the League?

#sackJose #inFT9wetrust #rememberTHATcornerinMunich #FT94ever #TorresFC

Who mentioned Torres? cause it wasn't me? you seem to have too much time on your hands there...

[Peppen 934]

Who mentioned Torres? cause it wasn't me? you seem to have too much time on your hands there...

I didn't claim that you mentioned Torres mate. But you indirectly keep bashing Mourinho and the team, and praise Torres for even the tiniest achievements. Bugger off.

I have too much time on my hands, coming from a Torres fanboy. Wow. Don't have a comeback for that, so I'll just let it sink in...

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

Not sure if you're serious, but in the most competitive and difficult league in the world, we won three titles in a decade and you think that's massive under-achievement? I think you're dismissing our competition and the strength of this league. This isn't Ligue 1 or Euredivisie. Or even La Liga and Calcio that normally have two teams running for the title, so it's a 50/50 run. This league is much closer and therefore having three titles in 10 attempts seem like just an amazing achievement of a team that literally went through a make over. You don't simply inject money and the titles start piling up. It takes time and I think we did very well given our competition...

Never like this sort of "holier than thou" talk. Anything that starts with "This isn't..." is so belittling. Its not hard to imagine that a team that has spent as much as Chelsea have under achieved a bit.

[EBH 283]

Gotta be a favourite for first manager sacked.

Surefire bet. He's unpopular with the fans already and Villa are certain to be in the drop zone if not bottom by October.

[Barbara 15,149]

Never like this sort of "holier than thou" talk. Anything that starts with "This isn't..." is so belittling. Its not hard to imagine that a team that has spent as much as Chelsea have under achieved a bit.

It's no holier than thou talking. it's simple basic math with basic odds analysis. a league where you have more than 2 teams running for the title is obviously harder to win. A league that divides money more fairly have better 'weaker' sides that lead top teams to drop more points. why do you think EPL often has champions with much less points except for the odd outstanding champion here and there?

Did I say the best? no, just the strongest and hardest. that's easily proved by numbers and has nothing to do with opinion.

The opinion came from the idea that 3 titles out of 10 is massive under-achievement. I think that's crazy and even a bit spoiled.

And to say we underachieved based in the investmens is not only spoiled but also foolish when at least other two teams also made big investments. City injected more money than us in the last few years...

[EBH 283]

Its not hard to imagine that a team that has spent as much as Chelsea have under achieved a bit.

I agree with what you're saying but sport isn't business. You can't expect a fixed return on investment, spending £1bn doesn't mean a club needs to win x amount of trophies to justify the expenditure. Looking at money spent and coming to a conclusion from that; that a team has under or overachieved, can be very misleading. Money spent doesn't mean money well spent - I think we can all agree that the likes of Chelsea, Man City, PSG and AS Monaco have at times spent very poorly. A team with fewer resources but a stronger transfer strategy would outperform a team with bottomless pockets being wasted on Fernando Torres or Roque Santa Cruz.

Also you have to consider that Chelsea and friends would all have had to pay way over the odds for players as selling clubs know and exploit the well endowed transfer budgets of the noveau rich. For exampe, Man City, if I remember right, were being held to ransom by AC Milan for Kaka but they eventually let him go to Real for a substantially lower fee.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

It's no holier than thou talking. it's simple basic math with basic odds analysis. a league where you have more than 2 teams running for the title is obviously harder to win. A league that divides money more fairly have better 'weaker' sides that lead top teams to drop more points. why do you think EPL often has champions with much less points except for the odd outstanding champion here and there?

Did I say the best? no, just the strongest and hardest. that's easily proved by numbers and has nothing to do with opinion.

The opinion came from the idea that 3 titles out of 10 is massive under-achievement. I think that's crazy and even a bit spoiled

Not arguing that, just the use of the phrase "this isn't... FM,Fifa... whatever" is so condescending.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

I agree with what you're saying but sport isn't business. You can't expect a fixed return on investment, spending £1bn doesn't mean a club needs to win x amount of trophies to justify the expenditure. Looking at money spent and coming to a conclusion from that; that a team has under or overachieved, can be very misleading. Money spent doesn't mean money well spent - I think we can all agree that the likes of Chelsea, Man City, PSG and AS Monaco have at times spent very poorly. A team with fewer resources but a stronger transfer strategy would outperform a team with bottomless pockets being wasted on Fernando Torres or Roque Santa Cruz.

Also you have to consider that Chelsea and friends would all have had to pay way over the odds for players as selling clubs know and exploit the well endowed transfer budgets of the noveau rich. For exampe, Man City, if I remember right, were being held to ransom by AC Milan for Kaka but they eventually let him go to Real for a substantially lower fee.

This isn't a debate I'm going to engage in, I know this... But to make the SUGGESTION that Chelsea have underachieved a bit isn't unfounded.

[The Skipper 20,609]

In comparison to other teams that have blown the money, we've done very well actually. Wouldn't say we've underachieved at all.

[EBH 283]

This isn't a debate I'm going to engage in, I know this... But to make the SUGGESTION that Chelsea have underachieved a bit isn't unfounded.

I would say that Chelsea failed more in the transfer market than on the pitch. There wasn't enough money, or it wasn't being used properly in the years between Mourinho leaving and Villas-Boas being appointed. The squad needed some improvements to compete with that amazing Man United team and instead the only notable additions were Malouda, Anelka, and Bosingwa. The three definitely had their moments but weren't consistently performing. Also some key players left and weren't replaced, such as Makelele.

Those four-five years saw a slowly ageing and declining team getting beaten by an insanely strong United team. That was when money was really needed.

[Viper22 2,418]

Never like this sort of "holier than thou" talk. Anything that starts with "This isn't..." is so belittling. Its not hard to imagine that a team that has spent as much as Chelsea have under achieved a bit.

So in your opinion everyone but Man Utd have underachieved in the PL era then? Because Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal have spent a fair bit and haven't won anywhere near as much. Since our cash injection in 2004 we have won 3 titles, Man United have won 5 and Man City have won 2. I'm happy with a title every 3 years tbh. Also, we haven't focused only on the PL in the last 10 years, we have won 10 other trophies. So we've been competing on many fronts every year.

Also, as much as you want that moral high ground over the league strength debate, i'm afraid it's just a fact. None of the other top league in Europe offer the competitiveness of the Premier League. Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Man Utd, Man City and even Everton are all better than the 3rd/4th best teams in most other divisions. How many of those would Schalke, Monaco, Lyon, Bayer Leverkusen, Marsielle, Inter, Sporting Lisbon, Napoli, Valencia, Sevilla or AC Milan beat? It isn't belitting other leagues to say they're not as competitive, it's just stating the fact that they aren't. It's not fault of the clubs in most cases, but the organisations running the leagues. For instance that horrific stat that 80-90% of the TV money for La Liga goes straight to the 2 big clubs, how are any other clubs meant to do anything? Just shows how good Atletico's achievement was this year.