No injuries ? Will Conte have them sit back deeper ? Matic & Kante not going forward as much (it's been very noticeable how much both have been involved at the other end of the pitch).
2016/2017 Title race
- Thread starter Adisa
- Start date
If games go to form then I'd expect Chelsea to reap 16 pts, Liverpool 16, City 12 and Arsenal 13 . So Chelsea still top by a point at the end of those six.
It's so difficult to spot irony in forum posts.
White text is for wimps!
Yeah seems like what you'd expect. Middlesbrough away sticks out for some reason. Have we struggled there in previous seasons?
We haven't played in the Championship in recent memory
Boro haven't been in the PL for 7 seasons so any prior history is irrelevant. Tough team to beat though (lost 5 out of 13 PL matches this season) and score against (15 conceded in 13 matches).
Chelsea:
Man City (A) Loss
West Brom (H) Win
Crystal Palace (A) Draw
Sunderland (A) Win
Bournemouth (H) Win
Stoke (H) Win
Can see City exposing us next weekend. Guardiola with a week to prepare for this game will be huge for City. Can't see us getting anything from there, our winning streak is bound to end soon. Apart from that game I see this being a relatively straightforward period apart from the Palace game where I see us dropping points in a tough away London derby competing against a team desperate for points.
14 Points
Liverpool:
Bournemouth (A) Draw
West Ham (H) Win
Middlesbrough (A) Win
Everton (A) Draw
Stoke (H) Win
Man City (H) Draw
I think they'll somewhat struggle without Coutinho especially away from home but they'll remain unbeaten.
12 Points
Manchester City:
Chelsea (H) Win
Leicester (A) Win
Watford (H) Win
Arsenal (H) Win
Hull (A) Win
Liverpool (A) Draw
I think they'll be buoyed on by a win against Chelsea & go on a win streak which will eventually take them top of the League.
16 Points
Arsenal:
West Ham (A) Loss
Stoke (H) Win
Everton (A) Win
Man City (A) Loss
West Brom (H) Win
Crystal Palace (H) Win
Can't see them getting anything at West Ham & City but relatively straight forward period apart from that. The loss of Cazorla will be a huge detriment to their season. They were absolutely flying before his injury.
12 Points
Man City - 46 Points
Chelsea - 45 Points
Liverpool - 42 Points
Arsenal - 40 Points
Man City (A) Loss
West Brom (H) Win
Crystal Palace (A) Draw
Sunderland (A) Win
Bournemouth (H) Win
Stoke (H) Win
Can see City exposing us next weekend. Guardiola with a week to prepare for this game will be huge for City. Can't see us getting anything from there, our winning streak is bound to end soon. Apart from that game I see this being a relatively straightforward period apart from the Palace game where I see us dropping points in a tough away London derby competing against a team desperate for points.
14 Points
Liverpool:
Bournemouth (A) Draw
West Ham (H) Win
Middlesbrough (A) Win
Everton (A) Draw
Stoke (H) Win
Man City (H) Draw
I think they'll somewhat struggle without Coutinho especially away from home but they'll remain unbeaten.
12 Points
Manchester City:
Chelsea (H) Win
Leicester (A) Win
Watford (H) Win
Arsenal (H) Win
Hull (A) Win
Liverpool (A) Draw
I think they'll be buoyed on by a win against Chelsea & go on a win streak which will eventually take them top of the League.
16 Points
Arsenal:
West Ham (A) Loss
Stoke (H) Win
Everton (A) Win
Man City (A) Loss
West Brom (H) Win
Crystal Palace (H) Win
Can't see them getting anything at West Ham & City but relatively straight forward period apart from that. The loss of Cazorla will be a huge detriment to their season. They were absolutely flying before his injury.
12 Points
Man City - 46 Points
Chelsea - 45 Points
Liverpool - 42 Points
Arsenal - 40 Points
You expect Liverpool to pick up 16 points in a congested fixture period without your best player? Interesting. You're nailed on for the title if that's the case.
January is congested and we play much higher quality teams. December relatively not and what can only be described as a less than taxing fixture list quality-wise. We actually played better without Coutinho against Sunderland (this isn't to devalue his contributions but just that he isn't Suarez so we aren't as dependent) and Origi offers something different with both Sturridge and Lallana due back from injury too (we've done just fine without Lallana for 3 weeks and many would describe him as out most influential player so far this season).
Think Firmino is fit for the weekend.
Fair enough. Time will tell if you're indeed correct. I personally think you'll initially struggle without him.
Coutinho is the main man on Liverpool. No question about that.
He's our most talented player but Lallana is more important in terms of how we play. We're noticeably weaker in our attacking play without him.
So long as 'Time will tell if you're indeed correct' doesn't mean us winning the league ! Because I've said from pre-season (in the thread on who's going to win it) that Chelsea would win it. I expect us to drop off in January /February (our toughest period by far) and then come back strong at the end to run Chelsea & City close.
Since we're clearly well out of it who do you think Mourinho would rather win the title of the 4?
Liverpool - he knows that's worst case scenario for us fans and clearly hates them himself.
Arsenal - Ongoing fued with Wenger, the specialist in failure
City - Guardiola, same city rivals
Chelsea - ex club, won't want them achieving anything after last season
As daft as it sounds, City are probably his preferred choice.
Liverpool - he knows that's worst case scenario for us fans and clearly hates them himself.
Arsenal - Ongoing fued with Wenger, the specialist in failure
City - Guardiola, same city rivals
Chelsea - ex club, won't want them achieving anything after last season
As daft as it sounds, City are probably his preferred choice.
Being 11 points behind seems like too much but I wouldn't count us out just yet. We have Everton away next and then Tottenham home as next two games. After that we have a month of 'winnable' fixtures ahead, 6 of them until we get to play Pool at home on January 15th. If we get 6 points in the next two games we could start a pretty decent winning streak which could bring us much closer to the top. It's obviously monumental task ahead and it's highly unlikely we'll manage it but the team looks like it's on the verge of 'getting there' for a while now. We utterly dominate teams but (until yesterday) we couldn't 'finish them of'. If we make that final step ahead in our game we'll become very dangerous as a team and then who knows. Either way even if we don't make it in the end encouraging signs are there and I'm convinced results are about to get much better.
edit: As who'll win it...my money is on Chelsea. They look so solid all around and they have no distractions unlike City who look more shaky regardless at the moment. Liverpool and City would be my joint favorites number 2/3.
edit: As who'll win it...my money is on Chelsea. They look so solid all around and they have no distractions unlike City who look more shaky regardless at the moment. Liverpool and City would be my joint favorites number 2/3.
I see Chelsea petering off at some point, Spurs will be Spurs and I feel we are a Sanchez injury away from being derailed, Giroud has been unreliable long-term and Perez is unproven. City will take it and Liverpool might end up being the dark horse. But I believe the Top 4 will stay as it is with City at 1 and Chelsea, Arsenal and Pool changing positions at 2-3-4.
Hoping so. Only concern is if we screw up against City it might make heads drop a bit. A win at the Etihad though and I'm going to be super confident for the Xmas period.
I think Conte would take a draw if it was handed to him right now. I think a win at the Etihad is too unrealistic.
City aren't that good. I think you've got a good chance of getting something from the game.
Disagree. They are an excellent team especially at home and have superior attacking talent than us.
This is our first real test of the season in regards to being genuine title contenders. We've beaten teams we SHOULD beat during this streak but we've already failed our first two tests of the season (Liverpool, Arsenal).
Given how we initially struggled against a Tottenham team that play like a big team (but lack the players of one) I'm still unconvinced by us against the truly top quality sides.
Spurs ?
West Brom (H)
Crystal Palace (A)
Sunderland (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Stoke (H)
Next 5 fixtures. All winnable games although the West Brom (excellent form) & Palace (tough away ground) could both be potential banana skins. Win these next 5 and hopefully we can pull slightly away from the rest & leave a little bit of room for margin of error.
Crystal Palace (A)
Sunderland (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Stoke (H)
Next 5 fixtures. All winnable games although the West Brom (excellent form) & Palace (tough away ground) could both be potential banana skins. Win these next 5 and hopefully we can pull slightly away from the rest & leave a little bit of room for margin of error.
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Your defensive record is excellent. Can easily see you winning all five.
I think you got a bit lucky yesterday. The score line suggests it was a convincing win and if you only saw the second half you would believe that as you were excelent second 45, but had City taken a couple of the chances they created it could have been so different. They got in behind you quite often and screwed it up. Next run of fixtures looking very good for your boys
They exposed our left flank of Alonso/Cahill. They constantly exploited those two and forced Luiz, Azpilicueta & even Moses at times to make last ditch challenges. Pretty much copied the same tactics Karanka & then Pochettino employed a couple of weeks ago.
We rode our luck at times especially once we went behind but recovered our composure after Costa's equaliser & we were well deserved winners.
Hope Chelsea win the title. Only option of the Top 4 that would not hurt.
I have a very annoying Chelsea-supporting friend, but I still hope that they run away with this one. I always felt sort of ambivalent whenever they won the title, whereas pretty much every other option would be horrific. Liverpool is the one team that absolutely must not win, obviously!
City should have been out of sight at HT & possibly playing vs. 10 men, more extremely fortunate (but we'll take it) rather than 'rode our luck', isn't it?
People talking about Chelsea winning it being the best outcome how about us winning it? Long way to go yet and it strikes me that we are only getting started.
Still hope Liverpool or City win it, prefer Guardiola's and Klopp's football to Chelsea's. Arsenal would be nice too, but it's Arsenal.
I'm convinced that Aguero dived. I know everyone is saying it was a red but I can't wrap my head around what exactly he did to him to make him go down.
Yeah, I couldn't quite work it out, I thought Aguero could have got around had he really wanted to. But it looked quite a lot like a foul too. Ref lets it go cos he isn't sure, I don't mind those really. The non-penalty on the other hand, looked like a genuinely terrible decision to me, unless I've missed something with that one.
Liverpool already dropping 3 points without Coutinho. I expect that to continue with their dodgy defence
We've got West Ham (h), Boro (a), Stoke (h) and Everton (a) coming up. If Matip is fit I think we'll be fine defensively and we scored three goals today without Coutinho. We won't win the league though. A title winning side would have won from 3-1 up.
Real problems for them will be when Mane goes to the AFCON. He's their most important player, and they will need to sign a replacement 'cause they got nobody who can do it right now
That's laughable. Coutinho, Firmino, Lallana and arguably Henderson and Matip are all more important than Mane. We'll mis him indeed though, but all signs point towards us being active in the transfer window to fix that.
Inexcusable performance today, typical Liverpool to bottle it 1-3 up with less than 20mins to go. When will we ever learn ffs.
So far I have read on here, and the media, that our one, single, MOST important player has been: Lallana. No, Coutinho. Actually, its Mane.
Personally we don't have one, like Chelsea do with Costa or City with Aguero. All LFC fans on here have said they would like top 4 this season and once Klopp has got his playing style ingrained he buys the players that fit the style. Having a positive net spend in the summer does not indicate a manager looking to challenge for the league title.
It's Matip. It's all about Matip. We win that game 3-1 or 3-2 with him there today.
But we don't score three goals with Matip on the pitch. If we don't have the goalscorers we're just another midtable team that will draw games 1-1, ahem, cough. Yes Matip is key but yet again not THE key player.