Final game: Liverpool v Wolves (h)

[Doc_Piptorious]

the draws earlier in the season when we were riddled with Covid cases were more damaging imo.

We also had draws that felt a little lucky at the time like the 2-2 draws against Chelsea and City. We were hanging on in both games.

Way I see it is a team getting 92 points over the course of a season has done amazingly well, and the fact a team has pipped us twice when we finished on over 90 points is astounding.

The totals that won the title over the past six years are nuts

93
86 (which is now starting to look like a low total)
99
98
100
93

Seems you now need to be in the 90s just to be competing for the title and in six years only different three teams have broken the 90 point mark.

The question is can the bar be pushed even higher in years to come and will it take regular 100 point seasons to win the title then.

[vlahka]

Impossible to know as I have already said here and others too.

It changes the approach to the other games. We might have picked a different starting 11 for Southampton, we might have picked up injuries, Citeh might have approach WHU different and won.

My point was people here are mocking tottenham. But they seriously tripped us up right at the end. Everyone could have done different things if we'd won, but I think thats not really a strong enough reason to shrug it off as a lesser important moment in the season compared to previous ones. The most recent is the most important.

If city had fielded a stronger team against West ham, mind you their entire squad is strong anyway, they could have been weaker against aston villa and not got the 3 goals in 5 minutes. You cant just say if we beat tottenham then city would have won every game and we'd have lost another. Makes no sense. If we had beaten city or tottenham, I believe we would have won the title. And thats going on by how the team has played in the past and the rotation patterns and Peps refusal to use subs at times.

[Mr Pink]

Feels even worse this morning, sober, and watching the highlights back. Yesterday morning, it was a free hit for me- was expecting city to win, but hoping they’d slip up- no pressure on villa. But after they had a 2 goal lead on 76 minutes, to conceded 3 goals in 5 minutes is a tough one to take. Would have been a lot more disappointing if we were leading already, before villa collapsed. Also would have been a lot harder to take, if both teams dropped points.

It’s been an incredible effort and have nothing but pride for our team- just annoying that villa didn’t hold on, especially when they had a 2 goal lead and all. With the gerrard factor, it really would have been the best ever end to a season. I think it would have ranked ahead of the aguero moment.

[Exiled_red]

We also had draws that felt a little lucky at the time like the 2-2 draws against Chelsea and City. We were hanging on in both games.

Way I see it is a team getting 92 points over the course of a season has done amazingly well, and the fact a team has pipped us twice when we finished on over 90 points is astounding.

The totals that won the title over the past six years are nuts

93
86 (which is now starting to look like a low total)
99
98
100
93

Seems you now need to be in the 90s just to be competing for the title and in six years only different three teams have broken the 90 point mark.

The question is can the bar be pushed even higher in years to come and will it take regular 100 point seasons to win the title then.

I don't think you can push the bar much higher, to get 92 points we have only dropped points in 10 games - that's dropping 22 points over a whole season, to get 100 you can't drop more than 14 points which is asking alot unless the quality of the league drops

[Mr Pink]

I don't think you can push the bar much higher, to get 92 points we have only dropped points in 10 games - that's dropping 22 points over a whole season, to get 100 you can't drop more than 14 points which is asking alot unless the quality of the league drops

Especially when you factor in that we won the 2 cups and are in the CL final next week. Is tempting to look back and say ya we should have won this game or that game, but end of the day, I’d have taken 92 points if offered at the start of the season- just a sickener that it wasn’t enough.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I don't think you can push the bar much higher, to get 92 points we have only dropped points in 10 games - that's dropping 22 points over a whole season, to get 100 you can't drop more than 14 points which is asking alot unless the quality of the league drops

I tend to agree with you hence me saying the question is can the bar be raised even further.

Then again 20 or 30 years ago would anyone believe that a run of seasons like that of the last six was possible in terms of points totals. Along with having a number of seasons where more than one club in the league got over 90 points in the one season.


When you consider that three of the last six seasons had totals of 100, 99, 98 and 97 points within those three seasons is it too much of a stretch to get a run of seasons in the 100 to 104 range?

[Ams12]

I guess with city almost a cheat code you’ll have to be near on perfect in the league all season to pip them to the title. If you win the majority of your games plus take points off them in one of the fixtures then you’d be in the driving seat.

Factor in the potential of chelsea being more consistent & the upturn in performance of utd and newcastle (depending on their recruitment/manager) then it’ll be hard to get 100+ points per season. There are the other teams too like arsenal & spurs that can cause dropped points so even lower points haul come end of the season.

Be more of a fun ride with more teams competing and not just 1 run away leader.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[red g]

I tend to agree with you hence me saying the question is can the bar be raised even further.

Then again 20 or 30 years ago would anyone believe that a run of seasons like that of the last six was possible in terms of points totals. Along with having a number of seasons where more than one club in the league got over 90 points in the one season.


When you consider that three of the last six seasons had totals of 100, 99, 98 and 97 points within those three seasons is it too much of a stretch to get a run of seasons in the 100 to 104 range?

I think so, Its more likely the 3/6 will make bigger leaps forward than us or city in the coming years as we are both at not far off peak powers.

Going to be some big money spent this summer and while I don't see anyone catching us 2, I can see more losses for both teams next season.

[npinn001]

I think so, Its more likely the 3/6 will make bigger leaps forward than us or city in the coming years as we are both at not far off peak powers.



Going to be some big money spent this summer and while I don't see anyone catching us 2, I can see more losses for both teams next season.

In reality, had we beaten City in just one of the games that would have been enough. I felt at the time the FA Cup game was the lads leaving it all out on the pitch after they didn't manage to turn City over at their ground.

[Exiled_red]

I tend to agree with you hence me saying the question is can the bar be raised even further.

Then again 20 or 30 years ago would anyone believe that a run of seasons like that of the last six was possible in terms of points totals. Along with having a number of seasons where more than one club in the league got over 90 points in the one season.


When you consider that three of the last six seasons had totals of 100, 99, 98 and 97 points within those three seasons is it too much of a stretch to get a run of seasons in the 100 to 104 range?

It might be possible for one team to get over 100 points it's unlikely that two sides would do that. To get the 104 points as you mentioned requires winning a minimum of 33 games and drawing the other 5, or 34 wins allows you a couple of defeats but it's a big ask. If one side is running away with it like we did a couple of years ago, or City did 4 years ago that tends to require you to have nothing else to play for (in those seasons we went out of the CL in the last 16 and City went out to us in the QF). I think if you are still involved in the CL the desire to rest players or just a difficulty in keeping focused when the league is in the bag makes it difficult to achieve that kind of total

[vlahka]

Any one have handy a site that shows per team how many injuris they've had in the season and for how long each player was out for?

[Doc_Piptorious]

It might be possible for one team to get over 100 points it's unlikely that two sides would do that. To get the 104 points as you mentioned requires winning a minimum of 33 games and drawing the other 5, or 34 wins allows you a couple of defeats but it's a big ask. If one side is running away with it like we did a couple of years ago, or City did 4 years ago that tends to require you to have nothing else to play for (in those seasons we went out of the CL in the last 16 and City went out to us in the QF). I think if you are still involved in the CL the desire to rest players or just a difficulty in keeping focused when the league is in the bag makes it difficult to achieve that kind of total

I agree it should be unlikely, but as said 30 years ago it probable looked unlikely for teams to be finishing on over 90 points for a sustained spell let alone having two teams finishing on over 90 points, let alone both being well into the 90s, in the same season.

And I was saying in the 100 to 104 point range, so that could be two teams finishing on 100 or one on 100 and the other on 102.

Given we have managed 99, 97 and 92 in recent seasons, it would not have taken many draws being turned into wins to have given us a couple 100 point seasons there.

City had a 100 point season and a 98 point season back to back so one draw turned into a win in that 98 point season and they would have had back to back centuries.

Throw in there being another sports washer in the division, and we could well see an arms race of sorts between the sports washers.

Up until very recently I have argued that we are pretty close to the bar being set as high as it will go save for maybe the odd freal season, but looking back over the points tallies every 20 to 30 years for the past 100 or so years there does seem to be a point where the unlikely tallies start to become more regular and then it settles for a bit before the next series of unlikely tallies become the new norm and so on.

I think that maybe by the end of this decade we will see back to back centuries and maybe the first ever PL season with two club getting a century of points.

[Rafa Justice]

I agree it should be unlikely, but as said 30 years ago it probable looked unlikely for teams to be finishing on over 90 points for a sustained spell let alone having two teams finishing on over 90 points, let alone both being well into the 90s, in the same season.

And I was saying in the 100 to 104 point range, so that could be two teams finishing on 100 or one on 100 and the other on 102.

Given we have managed 99, 97 and 92 in recent seasons, it would not have taken many draws being turned into wins to have given us a couple 100 point seasons there.

City had a 100 point season and a 98 point season back to back so one draw turned into a win in that 98 point season and they would have had back to back centuries.

Throw in there being another sports washer in the division, and we could well see an arms race of sorts between the sports washers.

Up until very recently I have argued that we are pretty close to the bar being set as high as it will go save for maybe the odd freal season, but looking back over the points tallies every 20 to 30 years for the past 100 or so years there does seem to be a point where the unlikely tallies start to become more regular and then it settles for a bit before the next series of unlikely tallies become the new norm and so on.

I think that maybe by the end of this decade we will see back to back centuries and maybe the first ever PL season with two club getting a century of points.

I'll switch off at the point if it becomes impossible to challenge. Would be like Germany and I wouldn't bother watching that if I supported Schalke or Leverkusen or someone.

[Exiled_red]

I agree it should be unlikely, but as said 30 years ago it probable looked unlikely for teams to be finishing on over 90 points for a sustained spell let alone having two teams finishing on over 90 points, let alone both being well into the 90s, in the same season.

And I was saying in the 100 to 104 point range, so that could be two teams finishing on 100 or one on 100 and the other on 102.

Given we have managed 99, 97 and 92 in recent seasons, it would not have taken many draws being turned into wins to have given us a couple 100 point seasons there.

City had a 100 point season and a 98 point season back to back so one draw turned into a win in that 98 point season and they would have had back to back centuries.

Throw in there being another sports washer in the division, and we could well see an arms race of sorts between the sports washers.

Up until very recently I have argued that we are pretty close to the bar being set as high as it will go save for maybe the odd freal season, but looking back over the points tallies every 20 to 30 years for the past 100 or so years there does seem to be a point where the unlikely tallies start to become more regular and then it settles for a bit before the next series of unlikely tallies become the new norm and so on.

I think that maybe by the end of this decade we will see back to back centuries and maybe the first ever PL season with two club getting a century of points.

It's not impossible it is just unlikely, Oddly it's more likely if two teams are capable of it because they will push one another. If there is a run away leader it won't happen IMO. Look at the season we won the league, we won it with 7 games to spare, the first 31 games we won 28, drew 2, lost 1 (86/93pts), the last 7 games we won 4 drew 1 and lost 2 13/21pts, that year we clearly lost focus in those last 7 games. If we had carried on with the same pts per game for the last 7 as the first 31 we would have ended up on 105, but really what is the motivation for that? You would hope that if you are that good of a team you would be in the latter stages of the CL and potentially resting players in league games when the title is more or less in the bag

[BG1973]

To Rafa J.

That's why I've said we are doing city a massive favour giving them competition. Nobody would watch the PL otherwise and things would change pretty quick I think.