2024/25 Season

[rudedog]

Who cares if the competition is weaker, this would be true for half of the titles Ferguson won but nobody really talks about that now.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Who cares if the competition is weaker, this would be true for half of the titles Ferguson won but nobody really talks about that now.

But the competition is not weaker. That is just a narrative being pushed. It is just the gap between the mid table teams and the top 6 to 8 teams has closed so there are more teams capable of taken points from the so called big clubs.


If anything the league is tougher now as there are less "easy" games.


In recent seasons it was two horse races with the two chasing the title prettys much chewing up the rest of the league and the results between the two toitle chasers being the difference makers.


Just look at the seasons we came runner up to City. We improve just one of the head to head games and we win the title instead of them.

This season the title chasers are in a position where beating the rest comes into play more as the rest are not being turned over as easily.


Not our fault our newbie to the league manager is better able to set up his team to counter the majority of the rest of the league than the "PL proven" wold class managers.


Not our fault our newbie manager has taken more or less the same squad of players that finished 9 points off the pace last season and is currently 12 points clear with that same group of players being a year older.

[BigChief]

Also on the PPG discussion, with a week's rest in between our remaining games, all of our first XI will be at their peak every weekend. So I expect to maintain PPG as a bare minimum. Ideally, we should be improving on the PPG with the luxury we have now.

[memzey]

On paper that makes sense however, we have tended to play better this season when our games have come back to back. I don’t know if it’s something to do with our training methods or something but our fluidity is definitely more evident when the games come thick and fast. I’d like us to smash every game between now and the end of the season but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Also on the PPG discussion, with a week's rest in between our remaining games, all of our first XI will be at their peak every weekend. So I expect to maintain PPG as a bare minimum. Ideally, we should be improving on the PPG with the luxury we have now.

To be fair, given the bar we have set on that front it would be very difficult to go on a run that betters our current PPG for the season.


Even if we look at the last ten games in the league, we have 26 points from 30 so a PPG of 2.6 per game is our recent form.

[Exiled_red]

To be fair, given the bar we have set on that front it would be very difficult to go on a run that betters our current PPG for the season.


Even if we look at the last ten games in the league, we have 26 points from 30 so a PPG of 2.6 per game is our recent form.

At the average rate for the season we would need to win 6 and draw 2 of our last 8 to keep us on our current PPG ratio, there are various factors in play but if we get the title wrapped up with a few games to spur I suspect we would lose a bit of focus in the last few games, that's why I don't expect use to get mid to high 90's points total

[Doc_Piptorious]

At the average rate for the season we would need to win 6 and draw 2 of our last 8 to keep us on our current PPG ratio, there are various factors in play but if we get the title wrapped up with a few games to spur I suspect we would lose a bit of focus in the last few games, that's why I don't expect use to get mid to high 90's points total

Right now we can drop to a smidge over 1.6 ppg for the rest of the season and it would not matter what Arsenal did.

Even if we drop to 1.5 ppg for the rest of the season, Arsenal still need to get 3ppg for the rest of the season AND they would still need to overhaul our superior GD to beat us on GD.


Needing us to drop 13 from the next 24 points whilst getting the full 24 themselves to get a clear win would require many lifetimes worth of luck to be used up by Arsenal imo.

Pressure has to be huge on them as they have to be flawless whereas we can afford slip ups and those slips ups still might not give them a sniff.


Actually even if we collapse and only get 8 more points this season, they still need 21 out of 24 to be sure to beat us.

Starting to think 3 wins might well be the tipping point.


What would be really funny would be if Forest can close the four point gap between them and Arsenal. I mean if people are thinking a 12 point lead is catchable, then something like a 4 point lead should be a doddle to overcome.

[rudedog]

But the competition is not weaker. That is just a narrative being pushed. It is just the gap between the mid table teams and the top 6 to 8 teams has closed so there are more teams capable of taken points from the so called big clubs.


If anything the league is tougher now as there are less "easy" games.


In recent seasons it was two horse races with the two chasing the title prettys much chewing up the rest of the league and the results between the two toitle chasers being the difference makers.


Just look at the seasons we came runner up to City. We improve just one of the head to head games and we win the title instead of them.

This season the title chasers are in a position where beating the rest comes into play more as the rest are not being turned over as easily.


Not our fault our newbie to the league manager is better able to set up his team to counter the majority of the rest of the league than the "PL proven" wold class managers.


Not our fault our newbie manager has taken more or less the same squad of players that finished 9 points off the pace last season and is currently 12 points clear with that same group of players being a year older.

By competition, I meant the teams competing for winning the league (ie Man City and Arsenal), not the competition as a whole

[Doc_Piptorious]

By competition, I meant the teams competing for winning the league (ie Man City and Arsenal), not the competition as a whole

I got that, but I think you have to take the strength of the rest of the teams into account when saying whether a league is strong or weak as those teams can come into play as much as your direct rivals do.


There have been other seasons when the league winner finished on 90+ points with no other team coming close, like the 2017/18 season when City finished 19 points ahead of second place, but nobody was shouting about that being a weak league. The narrative was all about City being better.

There are a number of similar examples over the past decade or so of a team winning the title by 6 point, often much more, and the talk was always about how great the winner must have been to be so dominant in the best league in the world.


We had our runaway season in 2019/20 and there was talk of a weak league.

Now we are miles ahead again this season and the weak league talk has resurfaced.

Just seems funny that it is only a weak league when we are strong, but when we go through a transition type season nobody is saying the league is weaker or easier when we are not challenging whoever is on top.

[Angryred]

Good points there, Doc... What is the agenda/grudge against us? Ah, it's just Liverpool... don't worry as this means more!

[Norbs]

On paper that makes sense however, we have tended to play better this season when our games have come back to back. I don’t know if it’s something to do with our training methods or something but our fluidity is definitely more evident when the games come thick and fast. I’d like us to smash every game between now and the end of the season but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.

Up to the point of exhaustion and then it goes a bit awry

[Mr Pink]

Why is it that Arsenal play ahead of us in every remaining round of fixtures (including the most recent), except for when we play them and when every team plays at the same time?!

It shouldn’t matter, but if there was only a point or two in it, this would be a big advantage in a title race, and it feels a bit unlikely to be coincidental

[Charly]

Up to the point of exhaustion and then it goes a bit awry

Yeah. Great season. But its obvious tiredness stopped it being what it could have been. The football we are playing now is not great compared to the first half of the season. People are going to remember it (unfairly) as us scraping results rather than sublime football of early season f we continue in this manner.

Im happy with anything at this point in my life. But even if we do regain momentum its going to be tough to carry it forward with the number of big changes in the summer. I think this transition will be what Slot will be remembered for. Hopefully we bring in the right players and dominate for the next decade

[spud_gun]

Why is it that Arsenal play ahead of us in every remaining round of fixtures (including the most recent), except for when we play them and when every team plays at the same time?!

It shouldn’t matter, but if there was only a point or two in it, this would be a big advantage in a title race, and it feels a bit unlikely to be coincidental

Because we're winning the league and all our games between now and the end of the season are on TV.

TV companies don't want to pass up on the game where we mathematically secure the title.

[Mr Pink]

Because we're winning the league and all our games between now and the end of the season are on TV.

TV companies don't want to pass up on the game where we mathematically secure the title.

Arsenal don’t have any Saturday 3pm games either, so they’ll be on tv too.

Also it’s crap that all our games are on Sunday.. means we’ll have to curtail our celebrations the day that we do win it, if we’ve work the next day…