2023/24 Season

[SB]

I’m kind of glad we were not top of the league for Christmas Day, it didn’t bode well for us on a few occasions now... Really hope we can Push on in the new year and hope the owners back Klopp if he decides he needs reinforcements.

Yeah Quansah has been elevated from an occasional cup game to Matip’s replacement so I’m hoping the owners don’t think we should bring Phillips back to replace Quansah as our 4th choice CB now the Gomez is needed to cover both fullback spots.

[danperkins]

Tierney

https://twitter.com/theanfieldbuzz/s...60645872070913

Yeah that's ****ing outrageous altogether.

[BG1973]

We have the best defence in the league and the third best attack.

And without VAR incompetency we would have at least 4 more points, so 46 points at halfway stage.

We are miles better than expected, especially from defensive point of view. Will be injuries to that defence that kill us, we are already on the brink with gomez being overplayed potentially.

We better not lose the league by 2 points. Can you imagine.

[Exiled_red]

What are we expecting to happen in the January window?

[Buzzo]

2 points clear at the turn. I doubt any of us imagined this outcome pre season, the only game we’ve lost we were involved in the worst ever VAR **** up and we played with 9 men - even then only losing in the last minute.

City are not as dominant as usual letting in more goals and dropping more points than we are used to.

Could be an exciting second half to the season, as by most accounts on here we are pretty ****

We CAN get better and if we do… who knows

[BG1973]

Yeah we can improve, all the points we've dropped feels like we should have got more which is also very positive.

The defence is so much better but recently the attack feels a bit stunted. Think we're yet to find that attack/defence balance. If that clicks then its going to very exciting.

[Irishnev]

[ame="https://twitter.com/athartwork/status/1740505060327735418"]https://twitter.com/athartwork/status/1740505060327735418[/ame]

[frank the tank]

I still think that City will come back and with the help of the referee ls, notch up something stupid like 16 wins in a row or something.

But you never know.

Still gutted that we didn't beat United at home. And also trent smashing the crossbar v arsenal was a sickener too.

But we look very good and the good news is that we look like we have players who can and hopefully will improve in the second half of the season

[Irishnev]

I still think that City will come back and with the help of the referee ls, notch up something stupid like 16 wins in a row or something.

But you never know.

Still gutted that we didn't beat United at home. And also trent smashing the crossbar v arsenal was a sickener too.

But we look very good and the good news is that we look like we have players who can and hopefully will improve in the second half of the season

I think City also, we’ve not taken advantage fully of their dip and neither have Arsenal. I also think we need 1 or 2 more into the squad to fully push on, if we make do injuries will catch up with us

[RedReet]

City have a much harder 2nd half of season, I just don't see any evidence to suggest they are going to get anywhere near the levels of previous years. DeBruyne could make a difference, but he'd need to hit the ground running and remain injury free for the remainder of the season.

We've chopped and changed our team all season, lost key players in every position, get ****ed over by officials every week and still lead the way. City seem wholly dependent on one player (Rodri), look a shadow of their former selves, yet they are still expected to walk the league and we're gonna be lucky to finish top 4 according to some?

Who knows, it may well play out that way, but based purely on the evidence of this season, it's some severely flawed logic. Previous seasons may well suggest City finish strongly, but that run was supposed to start in November.

[Pablo]

I do think it will be hard for City to suddenly switch into the relentless winning mode they are often capable of. They have been inconsistent all season, hard to suddenly go on a winning streak like that.

I think it will likely go down to the wire between the three of us. Injuries will be key and we haven't had the best luck with those I'm afraid!

[RedReet]

I do think it will be hard for City to suddenly switch into the relentless winning mode they are often capable of. They have been inconsistent all season, hard to suddenly go on a winning streak like that.

I think it will likely go down to the wire between the three of us. Injuries will be key and we haven't had the best luck with those I'm afraid!

Aye, I meant to add that I think all teams will continue to drop silly points. I'm not saying City won't or can't win the league, I just don't agree that because they were relentless in previous seasons, it means they'll do the same this time.

[Exiled_red]

I think for us it is still somewhat difficult to determine what our level is, we are still settling in a new midfield and some relatively new forwards, given our performances so far this season you could easily say we have underperformed, but in terms of the results achieved from those performances you could argue that we have over achieved. So it's difficult to say what will happen going forward, you have to believe that we will get better as the players get to know one another more so there is definite cause for optimism.

In terms of other sides, mostly City because they have been there and done it before we know that they are capable of putting a run of 15 or more back to back wins together, we also know that they tend to be better in the 2nd half of the season, it feels like we also will need to better our points total in the 2nd half of the season. Continuing the current pts/game would see 80pts win the title, that doesn't seem likely to me - that said the average needed to win the league is 80.4pts (calculated as what you would need to finish above the team in 2nd place) but only twice in the last 20 years has the team that won it got less than 86pts.

For us maintaining (or extending) this lead will be key, particularly getting through the period that Salah is away, you feel that if we get a couple of poor results that could rock our confidence, good results and extending the lead with Salah away could see players really kick on...


Also if things really do even themselves out of the course of a season we're in for some really dodgy VAR decisions going our way in the 2nd half of the season

[Buzzo]

I’ve heard people saying Robertson’s declined a lot. I disagree.

There’s an astonishing amount of that going on around here.

Pretty much every player in the team is substandard except Allison (we just ignore the games where he ****s up). Virgil is a great example of a player who has been written off but has improved in form again. Form fluctuations happen in both directions players can be out of form and improve again. But not here. Once something is noted the only thing that happens is supporters looking to be proven right, even if it means ignoring all other evidence.

The kudos of noticing a drop in form first is the only line of credit online. The. Wait until you are proven correct. That’s banked when a player leaves (this can take years including multi match winning runs) but the original point will still somehow be supported.

I think people are genuinely waiting for a game where everyone is 10/10 and we win 8 nil. This season the league will be won by grit and fight. People forget we didn’t steam roller everyone in 2020 when we won the league. We just always found a way to win. Similar to this.

Trent, can’t defend
Endo - didn’t cost enough
Diaz - ****e since injury
Nunez - does t score enough
Salah - scores only tap ins and pens and is past it, old, would rather have the money
Gakpo - what is he
Jota - bad technique but scores
Gomez - **** and injury prone
Matip - Old
Tsmikas - and not at required level
Jones - unproven doesn’t do it often enough
Robbo - past it declining
Kelleher - let’s too many in
Quansah - was free and is unproven
Konate - injury prone
Adrian - waste of space
Dom - in poor form
Mac Allister - wrong position
Gravenberch - not good enough will fail

Have I missed anyone out???

Even Klopp last year. Massive amounts of doubt that he was good enough.

And yet somehow this pile of ****e is top of the league. Somehow we have only lost one game (robbed) at the half waypoint. Do that again and we only go and ****ing win it.

More energy goes into wishing for and looking at the team with a raft of new signings for the 2026/27 season and getting a load of cash in the bank than actually getting behind the team that is currently top of the league.

“Because City are winning the League don’t ya know. They always do. They finish the league strong, every year”..

****. Them. ****. That.

It’s negative ****e. It’s the most neurotic, least exciting way of going after it this ever. Support the team in front of us.

Let’s go and win the ****ing league

[RedReet]

There’s an astonishing amount of that going on around here.

Pretty much every player in the team is substandard except Allison (we just ignore the games where he ****s up). Virgil is a great example of a player who has been written off but has improved in form again. Form fluctuations happen in both directions players can be out of form and improve again. But not here. Once something is noted the only thing that happens is supporters looking to be proven right, even if it means ignoring all other evidence.

The kudos of noticing a drop in form first is the only line of credit online. The. Wait until you are proven correct. That’s banked when a player leaves (this can take years including multi match winning runs) but the original point will still somehow be supported.

I think people are genuinely waiting for a game where everyone is 10/10 and we win 8 nil. This season the league will be won by grit and fight. People forget we didn’t steam roller everyone in 2020 when we won the league. We just always found a way to win. Similar to this.

Trent, can’t defend
Endo - didn’t cost enough
Diaz - ****e since injury
Nunez - does t score enough
Salah - scores only tap ins and pens and is past it, old, would rather have the money
Gakpo - what is he
Jota - bad technique but scores
Gomez - **** and injury prone
Matip - Old
Tsmikas - and not at required level
Jones - unproven doesn’t do it often enough
Robbo - past it declining
Kelleher - let’s too many in
Quansah - was free and is unproven
Konate - injury prone
Adrian - waste of space
Dom - in poor form
Mac Allister - wrong position
Gravenberch - not good enough will fail

Have I missed anyone out???

Even Klopp last year. Massive amounts of doubt that he was good enough.

And yet somehow this pile of ****e is top of the league. Somehow we have only lost one game (robbed) at the half waypoint. Do that again and we only go and ****ing win it.

More energy goes into wishing for and looking at the team with a raft of new signings for the 2026/27 season and getting a load of cash in the bank than actually getting behind the team that is currently top of the league.

“Because City are winning the League don’t ya know. They always do. They finish the league strong, every year”..

****. Them. ****. That.

It’s negative ****e. It’s the most neurotic, least exciting way of going after it this ever. Support the team in front of us.

Let’s go and win the ****ing league

I was back in work yesterday, so read the Arsenal thread for the first time and it blew my mind. Had planned on doing United one too, but for my own sanity I gave it a swerve.

Was gonna raise some of the points you did in a few threads, but since my recent conversation with Venton, specifically my tendency to argue the poster, rather than the football, I had to scrap them. You log in wanting to talk about a match, then read the posts and realise you watched a completely different game to everyone else, so it's almost impossible. I now find myself disagreeing with posters I normally agree with on points that I also agree with.

I've long since accepted the negativity towards our own players, but what still surprises me for some reason is the willingness to continually big up other teams. We had quite a good preseason, plenty of reasons to be optimistic going into the season. Watching the Charity Shield, which was a pretty **** affair BTW and neither team stood out 'City and Arsenal are a different level to us', 'we're so far off these two teams', 'we're going to get destroyed when we play these' etc. (same even said during the match threads when we were more than matching them on the pitch ) Similar comments about Newcastle, then at different stages of the season how we are behind United, Chelsea, Villa, Spurs. We go on winning run, it's because we haven't played anyone good and we'll be found out. We play well, it's because the other team were so **** and we were lucky we didn't play anyone else. We drop points, or even leave it late to win, there will always be a few 'yeah, our aim should be top 4' comments. Other teams get ridiculous fortune to win games, play badly, drop unexpected points but it doesn't seem to matter, they are still much better than us and we are deluding ourselves thinking we can compete.