Title Race

[dom9]

So most people have us around 3rdish with City winning it. I'm inclined to agree but it's so close that it's impossible to predict.

There has been a lot of inconsistency from all the top teams so far, hence the closeness of the group at the top. I wouldn't be surprised to see one team get their act together and run away with it after January. If that hapens, City are the team most likely to succeed imo.

[Norbs]

Top team at Xmas has won it the last four seasons

[Pablo]

Yeah I'm not discounting Man United from sneaking into the top 4, but can I see them making up an 8 point gap on us? No I can't.

I think they'll sneak into 5th ahead of Everton and Moyes will get another season to rebuild as they'll want to prove their a club that doesn't sack managers

Just to add to what I said above here's the Premier League points in the calendar year:

Man United: 68pts
Liverpool: 69pts

Given that half of those games were under Ferguson (they got 40pts to our 33 from Jan to May), I'd say it makes it unlikely they'll be able to take 8 points off us by the end of the season.

[Marina]

Ugh I hate this thread! Haha. Predictions are the worst thing ever. There's nothing to predict right now. Our position is unbelievably precarious. Let's bask in the glory of top spot while it lasts because our chances of actually winning the whole thing are extremely, extremely thin. As Rodgers said, it's unprecedented for a team to go from 7th to 1st in one season (discounting Ligue 1, where Montpellier went from 14th to 1st in one season... complete fluke and look where they are now).

Managing our expectations is key. It would be a dream to get back in the Champions League. Winning the title? Inconceivable. If it happens, I'll eat my words, sob, and... spontaneously combust from the complete and utter incredulity of the scenario.

[Pablo]

Top team at Xmas has won it the last four seasons

And the season before that we were top and we know what happened then

Do people feel we're in a stronger position now than we were then? (In 2008/2009). I think it's a fair comparison, we were looking good and rolling teams over easily then too.

That said we did finish runner's up back then, and I'd bite your hands off for that right now!

[topscorer]

Its so close this season. If Arsenal don't win today we can be top for Christmas Day but we can be 5th on New Year's Day.

If you was to rank the difficulty of games then our last two to the half way point would definitely be in the top 5 of the 38.

We are in contention for top 4. Nothing more. A lot of people are going to be pissed if we 5th on New Years Day because we are first now but if we'd been 5th all through the season and just a couple of points from first and above the Mancs the same people would have been happy.

[Rigadon]

United? I've not seen anything that would suggest they'll catch the leading pack. If anything I think they'll fade

Hope you're right, mate. Utd have experience of playing poorly and winning games. They also have the confidence and belief to beat anyone. They're also finding some consistency.

Yeah I'm not discounting Man United from sneaking into the top 4, but can I see them making up an 8 point gap on us? No I can't.

I think they'll sneak into 5th ahead of Everton and Moyes will get another season to rebuild as they'll want to prove their a club that doesn't sack managers

That eight point gap could be two ponts by the end of 2013.

Hope I'm wrong on all of the above

[cream]

Liverpool
City
Chelsea
Arsenal
Everton
United

[Chris]

Its quite funny seeing Man Utd needing title challenging/winning form from the last 21 games just to maybe scrape a top 4 place. Cant see them doing it, still plenty of difficult aways which Moyes cant win, City, us at home and they **** up to **** now aswell! Boss.

[Norbs]

Hope you're right, mate. Utd have experience of playing poorly and winning games. They also have the confidence and belief to beat anyone. They're also finding some consistency.



That eight point gap could be two ponts by the end of 2013.

Hope I'm wrong on all of the above

If Chris catches you talking like that you'll be chopped liver

[Mark79]

And the season before that we were top and we know what happened then

Do people feel we're in a stronger position now than we were then? (In 2008/2009). I think it's a fair comparison, we were looking good and rolling teams over easily then too.

That said we did finish runner's up back then, and I'd bite your hands off for that right now!

Back in 08/09 we hadn't handed out as many thumpings, not in the first half of the season. Up until the 5-1 at Newcastle on 28th Dec, our biggest wins were 3-0's vs Bolton a couple of days earlier and WBA in November.

There had been plenty of solid 2 goal wins, but we had also been dependent on a lot of late winners too. Overall we'd had many more games where we'd struggled to break teams down, regardless of if we ended up getting a winner or not. It wasn't really until the second half of that season when we started to roll teams over.

I think we're looking much more convincing this time around, at this same stage of the season anyway. Only problem is the league is much more open this year.

The 08/09 season did have the advantage of being a much tighter race, with only Man U and Chelsea to worry about.

[Mostar]

**** they beat Man Utd and Chelsea so far and also drew with us and Arsenal. That's pretty impressive actually.

In fairness they played Chelsea, Spurs and us at home while we only played Mancs at home.

In fact we are the team that played least number of games at home vs top 8 teams this season.

[~LFCHistory~]

Predicting where any team is going to finish this season ATM is IMO a waste of time, in previous seasons yes you could but this is without a doubt the most open and unpredictable season in PL history it's unprecedented really, no coincidence BTW that this happened as soon as Ferguson retired, no coincidence at all.

The only prediction I'd make is that City will finish in the top 4.

[Reece]

It's going to be tough at the Etihad

[Big-Red-Ed]

This is the way I see it.
We shouldn't really be were we are now but we are top after 17 games. We finished last season on a good run as well so we are consistent. We are not in Europe and we have far and away the leagues outstanding player and top scorer.
The team at the top the last 4 seasons has won the premiership.
As unbelievable as it seems to us we are real real contenders and I am sure all the top teams are treating us as such.